


Growing Up With Benefits

by sophielou21 (Scarlettpeony)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 14:14:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 46,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16369163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlettpeony/pseuds/sophielou21
Summary: Arthur and Gwen have always been close. As children, they were secret playmates and as adults, they are secret bed-mates.Originally written October 2011. Re-posted by request.





	Growing Up With Benefits

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written on Livejournal between 12/Oct - 30/Oct/2011.
> 
>  
> 
> _Original A/N: Written for the Help Fight Depression Auction for rubberglue who requested an Arthur/Gwen smut fic in which they are friends with benefits who realise there is more between them. What was intended to be a one-shot has turned into a multiparter. You know what I’m like with multiparters!_

Arthur and Gwen had been friends since childhood.

 

From a young age Arthur had been studying the arts of chivalry and swordplay from the unconventional and large Sir Dagonet, nicknamed ‘Joker’ by everyone due to his composure and light-humour. Nonetheless he had proved himself to be a worthy tutor to a prince as he actively encouraged him to be creative in his tactics and use whatever means necessary to beat him to the ground. As Dagonet was six-foot-five to Arthur’s then four-foot-two and small stature, it taught Arthur to be cunning and sneaky. He owed a lot to Dagonet. On other days he would take Arthur on long walks through the forest and in town, prompting him for questions he knew the King would wish to ask him when he took him out. Uther liked to take Arthur on a walk and a ride once every month to survey his progress. So, the young prince was always grateful, albeit stressed to remember everything he had been taught not only by Dagonet but by all his tutors in general, as it made him look good in front of his father.

 

Then one day Dagonet decided to take Arthur to a smith’s forge to show him how weapons were made. He didn’t take him to see the royal blacksmith as the old knight disliked the man’s work. “He does the job for the privilege of being elite rather than having an actual talent for it,” Dagonet told Arthur as they walked across the square. “I shall take you to view a blacksmith with real talent.”

 

Obviously, Gwen’s father was the ‘real talent’.

 

Arthur remembered the moment Dagonet led him into Thomas’s forge clear as day. The whole room had been hot and sweet smelling, the smell of liquid metal. At that time the blacksmith had two apprentices working for him and he had Elyan, who was then only seven, observing his work so that he too might pick up the trade.

 

“Keep those bellows going,” Tom ordered Elyan when he saw Dagonet and Arthur walked in. He looked quite large and intimidating to the young prince in the firelight, but that assumption dropped the moment Tom greeted them with a gentle smile. “Dagonet, so you made it?”

 

There came another odd thing; Dagonet smiled.

 

“Of course, Tom,” the old knight replied. “How are you?”

 

“I’m fine, sir, fine,” the younger man nodded with a beam. “’Thought we were going to lose Adele last week but she bounced back as she always does.”

 

Dagonet chuckled, “Your mother-in-law, I tell you she gives us all hope!”

 

“Doesn’t she just?” Tom agreed. “I suggested that she should live with us the other day.”

 

“I bet she loved you for that!” the knight said sarcastically.

 

“Do you know what she said?” Tom went on. “She said, ‘You’d do better to worry about how little space you’ll have when Gwen and Elyan are too big to share that rickety bed of theirs than think of shifting me in to that little box of yours.’”

 

Dagonet burst out laughing. Arthur didn’t have a clue who they were talking about and so he quietly stood, switching his attention between the two men, before his tutor finally got back to the reason they were there.

 

“I am very grateful for your agreeing to let us come and watch you work.”

 

“It’s no trouble at all,” Tom assured him, and he looked to Arthur. He nodded his head respectfully, “Your Highness.”

 

Arthur smiled proudly, “Good afternoon, Thomas.”

 

Tom laughed at the young boy’s formality and led them back to his heath. “So, you’re both here to watch how a sword is made?”

 

Dagonet nodded, “Indeed. I felt it was important – and the king agreed with me – that our prince should understand how the weapons and armour of a knight are made.”

 

“You didn’t think to go to Edmund?”

 

The knight scoffed, “Edmund has no real talent as a smithy. It’s a wonder the king keeps him on.”

 

“Is it because he’s posher than me and the lads?” Tom suggested cheekily, indicating his strikers. The two boys smirked and even Elyan had a giggle. “Well, I’m happy to get all the work I can. Shall we get star—”

 

Tom was immediately cut off by his young son’s poor use of the bellows.

 

“Elyan, for goodness sake!” he said in a strained but not very scolding voice. “You’re supposed to do it slowly and gently to keep the air flowing. The way you’re doing it is far too fast.”

 

“It’s hard!” the boy squeaked back.

 

Tom wiped his wet brow.

 

“Where is your sister?” he asked.

 

“She’s in the house sewing.”

 

“Fetch her so you can do it together; she can show you how to do it properly,” Tom told his son. Elyan made a sulky face, put the bellows down and ran towards the door. “Don’t run in the forge!” Tom cried after him, but his son ignored him and darted out the door and towards the house.

 

The blacksmith turned to his friends and sighed.

 

“I apologise for him,” Tom explained with a smile. “He’s learning... very slowly.”

 

Dagonet smiled again, “Fear not, I believe he will one day match your skills.”

 

“It’s flattering you think my skills are worth emulating,” Tom replied generally. He called over one of the strikers, Jack, and he held hot metal he had been working on with tongs while the boy used a sledge hammer to hit it. “Once I have done this,” he told Dagonet and Arthur, “we’ll move outside. I just want Elyan to see how to work the bellows proper—ah, here they are!”

 

Arthur turned around to see Elyan return swiftly. Both the strikers repeated Tom’s earlier warning: _“Don’t run in the forge!”_ However, he just ignored them again. Then slowly following behind him, and clearly remembering the rule of never running in a forge, came Gwen. She was shorter and seemingly younger than Elyan was although not by much. No more than a year.

 

Tom’s smile was soft as he caught sight of his daughter and he picked up the bellows to be held between the two siblings. “Show him how it’s supposed to be done, Gwen,” he told her. He then looked to Dagonet and Arthur, “The best way to get Elyan to learn if to have his little sister show him how to do it properly.”

 

Between them Gwen and Elyan commanded the bellows nice and slowly. With his sister there to stop him getting carried away, Elyan was forced to do it the way his father wanted him to.

 

“There we go!” Tom said, applauding. “Nice and slowly, slowly...”

 

 

*

 

 

Arthur found the rest of the afternoon watching Tom fascinating. He had a fixation on weaponry and armour, so it was genuinely interesting to see how it was made. The smelting, the forging, the drawing, the shrinking, the welding, the striking, the finishing – it was all art from start to finish. If the work of a blacksmith were not a science, one might have mistaken it all for magic.

 

Even putting the handle on a sword was a delicate art and everyone in the forge had a role to play. However, the one that caught the prince’s eye the most was the blacksmith’s daughter, Gwen. She fascinated him the most because she was a girl and yet seemed completely at home and at peace with the predominantly masculine work going on around her. Tom would ask her to do things to help him teach Elyan and she would automatically know what he was talking about.

 

It seemed so clever to the young prince, the whole thing.

 

The rewarding moment from Arthur’s point of view was when Tom dropped the metal in the water to cool it down.

 

“There we go,” Tom said as the sword smouldered. He picked it out of the bucket and showed it to Dagonet and Arthur. “That is how you make a sword.”

 

“A delicate art,” Dagonet nudged the prince. He turned back to Tom, “May I hold it?”

 

Tom handed it to him. The knight took the handle to test the balance, and he was amazed. “Remarkable. It’s as near to perfect as it could possibly be...”

 

“Well, I don’t know about that...”

 

“It is,” Dagonet assured him and handed it back. “Test it for yourself. I’d say it’s the best you’ve ever made.”

 

As Tom took the sword back Arthur had wandered over to the workbench to look at all the tools the blacksmith used to perfect the objects he was working on. Tom had named every single one and it surprised him how much work went into one sword. He picked up the heavy tongs that were used to hold the iron and, without thinking, touched the part that had been in the fire.

 

Gwen caught sight of him.

 

“Careful, that’s still hot!” she warned him.

 

Arthur burned himself on the end and dropped the tongs back down on the workbench with a loud clatter. Dagonet and Tom rushed over to see what had happened. To the prince’s surprise Gwen had grabbed hold of his hand to survey the damage, not considering for a second that she was touching the prince – without permission.

 

He said nothing, though.

 

“I’ll take him to the house,” Gwen said, taking Arthur’s hand and leading him along. “I’ll put his finger in cold water.”

 

Tom anxiously looked to Dagonet for confirmation.

 

He nodded, “You do that, Gwen. We’ll be along in a minute.”

 

Arthur allowed himself to be led to the little cottage by the six-year-old girl. She behaved much older than she was, more mature than her brother who gawped in bewilderment at the sight of the Prince of Camelot being led to their small cottage next to the forge. In fact, the forge was larger than their house.

 

Gwen sat Arthur down at the table and fetched him a cup full of cold water. He immediately placed the sore and blistered skin into the cup, which stung a little but was oddly smoothing at the same time.

 

“I’ll find a bandage,” she then announced. “My brother is always burning himself.”

 

She pulled out a stepping stall and climbed onto it to open a cupboard on the wall. She rummaged around before she pulled out a long, clean piece of cloth. Arthur continued to watch her.  She is so grown-up!

 

She returned with the bandage and he helpfully held his finger still in front of her so that she could wrap it up properly. Gwen dabbed the finger dry, trying not to hurt him, and then slowly began to bandage it up.

 

“Thank you,” Arthur said quietly.

 

“It is fine, my lord,” Gwen whispered back.

 

A little later Tom, Dagonet and Elyan returned to the house to find Arthur and Gwen still sitting at the table drinking honey water that Gwen had put together for them. “The prince says he had never tried it before,” Gwen explained. “And he wanted to try it.”

 

Dagonet smirked.

 

“How is the sword?” Gwen then asked.

 

Tom held the sword up high and smiled, “This is definitely the best sword I’ve ever made. It will have to be saved for someone very special.”

 

 

*

 

 

After that Arthur would play with Gwen and Elyan when he could. Both the prince and Dagonet knew that the King would not approve if he ever discovered his son’s preferred playmates were the children of a blacksmith, but after studies and training were over Dagonet used to allow Arthur to run free in the woods at the back of the castle.

 

It was there that he would meet Gwen and Elyan.

 

Dagonet would follow on slowly and watch from a distance, only coming forward at the sign of trouble or to settle minor quarrels. But this happened rarely, and he simply enjoyed listening to the childish chatter between the three of them while he read a book or dropped off under a tree he was sitting under.

 

When he fell asleep, he would do so for the whole afternoon and only be awoken by Arthur once it was time to get him back to the castle.

 

“I’m glad you’ve made friends with them, Arthur,” the old knight would say as they walked home. “It’ll be good for you.”

 

Usually Arthur, Gwen and Elyan would play the ‘dragon’ game or the ‘adventure’ game, as they called it. The adventure game was exactly what it sounded like; the three of them pretended to be adventurers and they used the trees, the clearings and the streams to act as inspiration for exciting quests.

 

The ‘dragon’ game was always played at the same clearing. It was in a secluded area in the middle of the woods and was unique in the sense that it was surrounded by a shallow stream of water. It was looped around a patch of land, turning it into an island. Wild trees, flowers and herbs grew all around it; rue, wormwood, pennyroyal, dill... that was just a few of them in the area. The buzzing of numerous inserts filled the air with a natural scent and melody. On a hot day, the plants made the air muggy, but the sound of fresh water was wonderfully holistic.

 

“Gwen and I discovered it a while ago,” Elyan had explained to Arthur first time they showed it to him. “We like to pretend it’s a proper island... or a castle with a moat.”

 

Arthur was impressed at their find. “This is so clever!”

 

It was clever how nature seemed to have fashioned this very spot for child’s play.

 

“There are three of us too,” Gwen observed with a cheerful smile. “That means we can play the dragon game.”

 

“What’s that?” the prince asked.

 

“Well,” Gwen explained. “We each take turns to play the prisoner, the dragon and the hero. The hero has to save the prisoner from the tower – well, the island-castle – and the dragon has to try and stop them.”

 

Elyan nodded, “Yeah, usually Gwen and I have to play on our own and so we have to pretend there is a dragon. But with three of us, one of us can actually be the dragon!”

 

Once Arthur understood the concept they would play that game for hours. It turned out that Elyan preferred playing the dragon anyway because he could push people into the water.  “That means you’re dead!”  he would cry.  “You forget that I can swim!”  Arthur would say each time it happened while he was playing the hero. It never occurred to him to use the prince card when he was pushed into the water, as one would expect him to, and he would usually return home after it became too late to play with damp clothes.

 

Even when they weren’t playing the game Arthur, Gwen and Elyan liked to splash in the water.

 

“What on earth do you do when you play?” his nurse would ask him when he came in.

 

“I splash in the steam,” Arthur would reply, and add hastily. “Alone.”

 

“Well, please don’t! You’ll catch a cold and then your father will blame me.”

 

Dagonet chuckled, “No, Enid. He will blame me, not you.”

 

The nurse gave the knight a cold look. “I bloody well hope so, sir!”

 

Fortunately, Arthur never did catch a cold. All his life he was as healthy as a horse and his nurse stayed with him until he outgrew her, and she retired.

 

However, one day Elyan did catch a cold and so it was just Arthur and Gwen playing alone. Instead of playing the dragon game they decided to sit in the middle of the woodland island and play more calming games like ‘I spy’ or watching the clouds go by and picking shapes in them. As they grew older Elyan began to stay with his father more to help him in the forge and Gwen got a job at the palace. This allowed her and Arthur to spend time to play alone, and if Elyan could get away he would meet them at the ‘island’.

 

Arthur would miss Elyan if he couldn’t come and play, but he also liked being alone with Gwen.

 

“I wonder whether one side of the stream runs faster than the other side,” Arthur mused to her, peeling the bark off a stick. “Like, which side is the flow most dominant on?”

 

Gwen was sitting right next to him, also peeling a twig until it was green underneath.

 

“Let’s test it!” she suggested.

 

They each took a twig to the point where the steam separated to make the loop around the patch of ground and dropped them in. Together they then ran to the other end where the two small streams met again and waited. Eventually the part that Gwen was watching produced the twig first.

 

“This one!” she announced proudly. “My twig got here first so this is the fastest stream.”

 

Arthur’s twig finally turned up and floated on.

 

“No, no, my twig might have got caught on the stones,” he pointed out. “We should do it again to make sure.”

 

Gwen picked up another twig, smiling, “Alright!”

 

They ran back to the beginning of the split stream.

 

“I want to do your side this time,” Arthur told her.

 

“Why?”

 

“Because I think it might be faster,” he said honestly with a cheeky smile.

 

Gwen rolled her eyes. “It’s not a race, Arthur!”

 

He winked at her, “I still want my twig to win.”

 

 

*

 

 

The two children lay side by side staring up at the lilac sky above them. Both would have to be headed home soon, Gwen back to her father and sick brother, Arthur to the castle and to the limitations of a prince’s life. Playing was fun but sometimes it was nice to lie back and talk, or at least play a spotting game.

 

Right now, their game consisted of Arthur pointing at plants and Gwen telling him what each one did to the best of her knowledge. Not that she knew all of them. She knew most but not all. But this made no difference to Arthur, who knew nothing at all, and so she made up the answers she was not sure about.

 

“What about that plant?” the prince asked, pointing over to a spot of yellow rue. “What does that one does?”

 

Gwen glanced over to see which plant he was referring to.

 

“I think that’s true,” she told him. “Gaius is always collecting that. He told me once it was brought here originally by foreign invaders from beyond the sea in the south.”

 

“But what does it do?”

 

“A lot of things,” Gwen replied as she tried to think of one property. “You can get eye drops with it in. I think Gaius also uses it for patients with muscle problems.”

 

“Anything else?”

 

She shrugged, “I can’t remember. I think a lot of women tend to take it for headaches, though.”

 

Dagonet overheard their conversation and chuckled to himself. It was not quite as amusing as when Gwen, not knowing the full properties of pennyroyal, had told Arthur it helped hair re-growth. Nonetheless their innocence was endearing.

 

The two children heard him and looked up over the small stream at where he was sitting under a tree, reading his book.

 

“What’s so funny, Dagonet?” Arthur asked.

 

The knight looked up and smirked, “You speak of _la herbe du belle fille_?”

 

Arthur blinked, not well-versed enough in foreign languages to know what Dagonet had just said. However, he did know enough to know it was a Romance language. “What does that mean?”

 

“It means ‘herb of fair maidens’,” Dagonet explained. “You are far too young to understand what a useful little herb it is... but maybe one day you will.”

 

Indeed, the old knight was not in the mood to discuss the facts of life with two clueless children. It was better to leave them to discover those sorts of wonders from embarrassing conversations with their parents or romps with their peers. Given that Arthur was a prince and Gwen was a commoner girl, the latter seemed most likely for both.

 

Arthur rolled his eyes and turned back to Gwen.

 

“He doesn’t half say weird things sometimes!”

 

She chuckled and lay her head back down.

 

He tried to change the subject a little, “So how is Elyan’s fever?”

 

“Gaius came to our house,” she explained. “He prescribed him some yarrow and says he should be better by next week.”

 

Arthur felt both glad and disappointed. He was happy that soon Elyan would be back and they could go back to playing their regular games of dragons and adventure. But on the other hand, he had oddly liked this seclusion with Guinevere. She had proved to be quite fun to talk to and play with alone, even though she was a girl.

 

“What is yarrow used for...?”

 

“Fevers!” Dagonet called over.

 

Gwen rolled her eyes, “I knew that one!”

 

 

*

 

 

Soon after that Uther forbade Arthur from playing out in the woods anymore.

 

It had come to his attention from the patrolling knights who had seen the prince playing with two commoners, a boy and a girl. They rightly identified that this was something the King would want to know and told him straight away. This was clearly a failure on Dagonet’s part to keep the Prince away from ‘undesirables’, not least because it then transpired that the knight had encouraged Arthur with these ‘friends’.

 

So, Uther quietly dismissed Dagonet and sent him away to the country. He was old and due retirement, which meant the King did not need to explain the true reasons.

 

He then called his son in to see him and explained his wishes to him. “I feel now that Dagonet is not the right role-model for you now that you are slowly becoming a man. He taught you well and for that we will forever be grateful. However, I have decided that from now on Sir Cai will take charge of your education.”

 

The prince stared in disbelief. His father had always spoken so highly of Dagonet. That he would suddenly not be a worthy role-model was... strange.

 

“But why, father?”

 

Uther raised his hand, “Please, Arthur, do not ask questions. It is as it is. Dagonet is old and due retirement whereas Cai will remember better what it was like to be a young man.”

 

Arthur swallowed, “I expect so, sire. Nonetheless I feel that—”

 

“Arthur,” Uther said firmly. “What did I just say?”

 

The boy nodded solemnly.

 

“Yes, sire.”

 

“And one other thing,” Uther added with a half-hearted smile. He was trying to appear fatherly but just looked insincere. “I feel from now on you should concentrate on your studies and your training, no more playing in the woods.”

 

Arthur blinked. “You mean—I can never go to the woods again?”

 

The king laughed, “Of course not! No, I just feel that your studies should be your first concern. You must learn the skills you will need to become a king and frolicking in the woods is not one of them.”

 

He nodded, “I suppose not, but—”

 

“You should also find friends among your own rank,” the king went on to say. The older man watched his young son’s shoulder’s slump in realisation that this was the root of Uther’s decision to retire Dagonet early. Yet the king was unmoved. “And that you should try to find friends among the men, not among the women. Female friends tend to... soften your judgement, I find.”

 

“I don’t think that’s always true, father.”

 

Uther gave him what Arthur always called ‘The Eye’, the look that told him that his father would not drop the subject until he had complied and agreed.

 

“Nonetheless,” the father said. “I would appreciate it if you made friends with some of the nobler boys of your age than, for example, a commoner girl.”

 

 So, you really do know about Gwen?  Arthur thought again, this time sighing as he realised he had very little wiggle room. Maybe when he was older and as big as his father he would find the courage to contradict him but for now he had to do as he said.

 

“I will try my best, father.”

 

The king nodded, “I know you will.”

 

 

*

 

 

That evening Arthur eluded his nurse and snuck out of his chambers.

 

He had never done that before, mainly because he was frightened of getting caught. His father would probably lock him in his room for a month if he was caught, but the young prince was determined to say goodbye to his two lower-born friends and tell them the sad news of Dagonet’s leaving for the country.

 

There was no way to get a message to Elyan as he would be at home, but Arthur knew that Gwen spent every Sunday in the castle, learning how to weave from one of the old seamstresses, Adele. He knew her name because Gwen had told him once ‘that old seamstress’ just happened to be her grandmother.

 

Arthur had never had any grandparents. He had never even had a mother, and sometimes he felt like he only had half a father. His mother’s parents both died when she was a child and, along with her siblings, had been raised by their grandfather. His father’s mother had died when Uther was a teenager, and his father died about five years before Arthur was born. Mad and a shell of a man. The closest thing Arthur had to a grandparent in his life was Gaius!

 

That was to say that Gwen’s grandmother was very old. Their mother Emma had been the youngest of twelve children, most of whom tragically died before they reached adulthood, and the family had been relatively poor after the father died until Emma was able to find work in a nobleman’s household when she was twelve, which then led to her coming to Camelot and marrying Thomas when she was nineteen. Adele had been a brilliant cloth-maker, and so Emma pulled every string she could to secure her both a comfortable position, so she could support herself in her old age.

 

She lived in a small cottage at the edge of town. Every night you could sometimes see her hitching a lift back there on a cart headed out of town. On Adele’s days off, which were few and far between as she liked to work, according to Gwen and Elyan, they would – or rather Gwen would – make some soup for her and carefully walk up there, carrying it between them.

 

This little picture of life fascinated Arthur. It was so very different to his.

 

Once he felt safely away from the clutches of his father’s servants, who would immediately confront him and walk him back to his chambers, Arthur walked steadily towards a forgotten part of the castle where at the very end of a narrow corridor was a small, dimly lit room in which Adele worked.

 

He poked his head around the door.

 

Neither the child nor the old woman noticed him. Adele was instructing Gwen on how to properly lay her stitches. Her commands were whispered but direct. She wanted her granddaughter to be good at this so, when the time came, she could make clothes for her husband, her children and herself.

 

“That’s good, Jenny,” the old woman muttered. “Good, not man would want a woman who can’t sow, now would they?”

 

 I don’t care either way, Arthur thought to himself.

 

He still felt a little bit nervous about alerting his presence to them. In playing with Gwen he often forgot that most people tend to react with shock and surprise at seeing his face. She and Elyan had become indifferent to the fact that Arthur was a prince, although they still minded their manners and language in front of him, but Adele was still living in poverty in a castle surrounded by twelve dead children as far as Camelot and nobility were concerned. The kindest thing Emma ever did for her mother wasn’t getting her this job; it was finding her this safe room, away from all the snobs.

 

Wool and cotton went in, clothes came out. That’s all they needed to know.

 

So, Arthur just watched Gwen awhile as she laboured over her work with a look of dead-seriousness on her face. He smiled at how important this clearly was to her. How desperate she was to get it done and please her old grandmother. It was like this was her last chance to do so and given Adele’s advanced age it probably was.

 

She was older even than Gaius!

 

“Oh my, my look at the time,” Adele suddenly said, noting the darkness rising outside. “You had better get home, Jenny dear.”

 

She patted Gwen’s shoulder and pointed to the door.

 

Arthur ducked his head away and hid in the equally dark corridor. He hadn’t noticed.

 

“You hurry and get home, or your daddy will be worried, now,” the lady wittered on.

 

Gwen placed the cloth she was working on into a basket. “Aren’t you going home soon, Nana?”

 

“Old Bernard’s cart doesn’t leave until the seventh hour,” Adele reminded her, as if she told her granddaughter this every Sunday. She probably did. “I’ll keep working until then.”

 

“You’ll go blind if you work at this dim light,” Gwen warned her.

 

Adele chuckled, “I’m too old to worry about going blind, Jenny dear. Now off you go!”

 

He didn’t know whether it was because he was frightened at being caught spying or because he was stared of being drawn into an awkward conversation with Gwen and her grandmother, but Arthur rushed to the other end of the corridor and hid. He knew she would have to walk that way, and that end of the corridor was lit better.

 

Arthur waited until Gwen rounded the corner. Seeing him there gave her the shock of her life. So much so that she let out a little scream and nearly dropped her basket.

 

“Your highness,” she said with custom formality, given their whereabouts. “What are you doing here?”

 

“I need to talk to you,” Arthur told her.

 

“Right now?” Gwen said in surprise, still weary of the fact they were in the middle of a public corridor. It didn’t seem fit for the prince to talk to a commoner. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

 

Arthur felt suddenly sad.

 

“That’s what I wanted to tell you,” he explained, and led her to one side.

 

There was an empty guest chamber nearby, so he walked her into there. The whole time Gwen wore an expression which showed she was not comfortable being there. Her face only softened when he told her about his father finding out about them playing together, dismissing Dagonet and appointing a new knight, Cai, to be his tutor.

 

Gwen winkled her nose.

 

“But isn’t Cai a bit...”

 

Arthur nodded, “I know. I don’t know why my father picked him of all people.”

 

He thought it was probably because Cai’s father was a good friend of his. Plus, he was old and rich and thinking about how much of his assets he was planning on leaving to the crown. A good position for his son might persuade old Ector to be generous.

 

“So,” Gwen said after a while. “This is goodbye, really...”

 

“I doubt it will be goodbye. We’ll see each other all the time.”

 

“But we won’t play together, will we?”

 

Arthur cringed, “No, I suppose not...”

 

Gwen nodded slowly. “Then I will tell Elyan when I get home.”

 

She turned to leave.

 

He grabbed her hand.

 

It took the young girl by surprise, but she turned back to face him.

 

Now Arthur had her attention, he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. He had wanted to tell her something nice and reassuring, to let her and Elyan know that they would still be his friends even if he couldn’t play with them anymore. But he had no heartening words to say.

 

He just wanted Gwen to stay a little long. He liked her company more than anything because she was so gentle and well-spoken despite being a commoner. Her voice was more delicate and refined than most of the girls he knew that did have status. And she was gentle, friendly and thoughtful.

 

Arthur liked all of that too.

 

He really liked Gwen. More than he probably should.

 

Maybe that was why his father had such a problem with him playing with her?

 

Maybe it was making him soft...? He did feel a little soft, and a little excited, whenever he was with her.

 

“Are you alright?” Gwen asked after a few seconds silence.

 

Arthur snapped out of it.

 

“I do have one request,” the prince told the maid.

 

“What is it?”

 

He didn’t know.

 

For some reason at that moment, looking for some inspiration, Arthur thought of ‘The Dragon Game’ and how it always ended once Elyan had been pushed into the make-believe moat and Gwen rescued from the imaginary tower. The fairy tales always ended with the maiden giving the brave hero a kiss. Although they had never actually carried out this ritual but rather, jumped in the ‘moat’ after Elyan and splash each other, Arthur had started to grow more and more curious about what it would be like to kiss her.

 

Elyan said that it was disgusting to kiss girls, but Arthur still wanted to test the theory.

 

Gwen leaned in close to hear Arthur’s request.

 

He made it with a grin. “May I have one kiss?”

 

Her eyes flew open. She even stumbled backwards in surprise.

 

“What?!”

 

“On the cheek,” Arthur quickly added, “Just once.”

 

Gwen’s own cheeks heated up. “Why would you want me to do that?”

 

He shrugged, “I’m just curious.”

 

“Can’t you get another girl to kiss you? You are the prince.”

 

Arthur shook his head, “You’re the only girl I speak to.”

 

“The Lady Morgana’s a girl, and so are Lady Helen, and Lady Enid...”

 

The prince pulled a face. “I mean a proper girl.”

 

After brief hesitation Gwen decided to grant Arthur this one last favour before they parted ways, never to play with each other again. She leaned forward a kissed his cheek softly. Her lips lingered for a moment before she pulled back to look at him. As she did, she could not help but reflect on how soft and cool his cheek had been.

 

Similarly, all Arthur could think about was how soft and warm her lips had been.

 

He smirked in triumph.

 

“Thank you, Guinevere.”

 

She nodded awkwardly, not sure whether it would be all right to leave yet or not.

 

“Guinevere, can I ask you something else before you go?” he asked.

 

Gwen nodded dazedly, “What?”

 

“Why does your grandmother call you ‘Jenny’?”

 

From the expression on his face, Gwen could tell he was thinking that he thought she was losing her wits. It made her feel defensive suddenly and she forgot about kissing his cheek for a moment.

 

“She’s not senile or anything!”

 

Arthur tried to mask his surprise at her outburst, “I never said she was.”

 

Gwen pouted and answered his question, “She originally comes from the south, a place called Cerniw. ‘Jenny’ is a nickname for girls called Gwen there.”

 

The prince nodded slowly. He didn’t like the nickname ‘Jenny’. It did not suit Gwen at all. One of the other things he had always liked about Gwen was her name. It felt nicer to say than any other name he had ever come across.

 

Guinevere.

 

Gwen- ha -vere.

 

She seemed to read his mind again.

 

“I don’t like it,” Gwen said quickly. “The nickname ‘Jenny’, I mean. I just let her call me it because she’s my grandmother.”

 

Arthur did not know what else to say; probably because there was nothing else to say.

 

“I’ll miss talking to you,” he confessed after a long awkward silence where neither of them could bring themselves to speak, even to suggest leaving, “And Elyan, of course. I don’t know who else I’m going to talk to now...”

 

“You can talk to Cai.”

 

The prince just rolled his eyes.

 

Gwen looked over to the chamber door behind her. “I need to go home, sire. My dad will be wondering where I am if I go home too late.”

 

“Of course,” the little boy said reluctantly. “Will you be all right walking home in the dark?”

 

The little girl smiled, “I’m not afraid of the dark.”

 

 

*

 

 

That was that for a long time.

 

Arthur was forbidden to play with Gwen and Elyan anymore. He followed his father’s orders to focus on his studies and swordplay, and Cai proved to be a wonderful hate figure for him to take out his rage on. Cai was a filthy-mouthed, snobbish misogynist sod who viewed the world in a black and white manner and it irritated Arthur to no end.

 

But all these ‘friends’ that Uther had encouraged him to make all looked up to and admired Cai. They saw him as some sort of... commander. The prince hated that because he felt he was more deserving of their respect. He was their future king, after all, and Cai was a dirty-living twat who boasted too much.

 

So, the prince worked on witticisms to get the better of Cai, but Cai gave as good as he got so it was difficult for Arthur to nail anything to him. It was like trying to nail cream to the ceiling. Arthur kept trying and Cai kept biting back, and their ‘friends’ egged them on even further...

 

He was not the only one who moved on too.

 

Very soon after Arthur was forced into this new regime set out by his father, Gwen lost any desire to go with Elyan to their little haven in the middle of the forest. It just didn’t feel like fun anymore. So, Gwen decided to focus on her work; sewing, weaving, cooking, cleaning...

 

Eventually Gwen’s talents began to precede her. They came to the attention of Sir Ector, who was charged with the running of the king’s household, including the servants. Then when Uther mentioned in passing that he wished to find a young maid with a skill for domestic chores to serve his teenage daughter-ward and asked Ector for anyone suitable, he suggested Gwen.

 

“She is still a child,” Ector confessed. “Just twelve-years-old but extremely reliable and dedicated to everything she does. I feel she would suit the Lady Morgana’s apartments very nicely.”

 

Uther was interested. “Twelve is very young but she would only be there as a lower-ranking handmaiden to help her chief maidservant...”

 

“Tesni would be very pleased with this girl,” Ector assured him. “She already knows her and has already given me her approval.”

 

“Is she pretty?” the king asked suddenly, taking a sip of his wine to show he wanted to wrap this discussion up quickly and turn to more pressing matters. “Morgana insists that this new maid be pretty.”

 

Ector chuckled, “She’s a very pretty little thing. Very small, if not a tad bit petite but I’m sure she will fill out once she’s older. I’m certain the Lady Morgana will like her. She is the sweetest thing. In fact, my wife quite fancied her to be her maid ‘once she has ripened’, as she would say.”

 

Uther nearly burst out laughing. It was rumoured throughout the court that Ector’s wife’s preferences were for her own sex and that her maids were usually the objects of her attentions. Not to mention the objects of her son’s attentions too. If Morgana was to have this girl as her maid, he would have to declare it now.

 

“This girl it shall be then,” the king decided. “Have her assigned immediately.”

 

 

*

 

 

Gwen’s new position allowed her to watch her old friend grow up from afar.

 

As the years went by Arthur became less and less like the boy she used to play with. She watched him being tugged and tossed by all those around him and it saddened her greatly. The result of five years of endless teasing from Cai and a painful period in which Arthur finally hit puberty, shot up a foot and a half and finally grew some muscle, was a promising young man who unfortunately had developed a terrible side-effect known to the laymen as being “a bit of a prat.”

 

By the time he was seventeen and she was fifteen, she barely recognised him.

 

When Tesni retired from service, Gwen was maid Morgana’s chief maidservant. She was given a small presence at court and she was expected to stand beside her mistress. She watched the weariness of audiences with the king, to which Arthur was always present too.

 

Gwen told herself often that the prince had grown into someone she did not know or especially like. However, she could not deny her confusion about her feelings towards him. On the one hand, his treatment of his own servants was appalling and some of the things he said were so needlessly rude and egocentric that it really made her feel angry. Nonetheless, it was very hard for Gwen to ignore the more superficial things about him. He was so handsome that it made her chest and stomach tighten whenever she thought about it. And even though for the most part his roguish actions disappointed her, she felt she could still see the sweet natured boy she used to play with as a child.

 

It made her sad and annoyed at the same time.

 

It didn’t help that the nearest Gwen got to contact with Arthur was whenever Morgana spoke to him, and this was usually to mock and belittle him.

 

She understood Morgana’s need to take her brother down a peck or two as Gwen frequently liked to do it with Elyan. Yet there was a part of her that could see deep down Arthur was playing up to expectations from his friends rather than being himself and so she felt sorry for him when he stared down Morgana’s insults.

 

“Kicking your manservant around again?” Morgana would ask generally, in a voice provoking a reaction.

 

“He won’t learn if I’m easy on him,” Arthur would retort, rising to the challenge.

 

“I think you’re doing it to compensate for something.”

 

“Oh really?”

 

“Yes, to compensate for the fact that you command so little respect that you have to beat it out of people.”

 

“Whereas you hold no respect whatever from anyone anywhere,” the prince snapped back, finding it hard to keep his patience, “which isn’t surprising given you are so irritating.”

 

“The king respects me,” Morgana taunted. “He spends most of his time just giving you orders. It must be very frustrating.”

 

Arthur swallowed hard. The mention of Uther touched a nerve inside him and it caused him to start spouting out quip after quip: “He spoils you... which accounts for your pampered personality. Let’s hope you marry some rich lord who can maintain your expensive tastes.”

 

“I have plenty of those at my back and call.”

 

“Even if you do, they only respect you as an ornament, seeing as you have no personality to speak of.”

 

“Whereas you are so dislikeable I cannot imagine any woman wanting you for anything other than your money.”

 

Arthur groaned and turned to walk away. “I’ve had enough of this. You’re giving me a headache...”

 

“Oh, what a pity!” Morgana said with mocking sympathy.

 

Gwen had watched the whole exchange in silence. It was making her head too.

 

Then a jolt would pass through her body when Arthur looked at Gwen as he turned to leave. He always did that. The look in his eyes was so familiar. It was like he was trapped between all the gapping, yapping mouths and had no way to escape. The only way he could cope with it all was to rely on his quick wit, and this one look.

 

A look to someone who, deep down, he hoped knew him better.

 

Gwen wanted to think she did... but so much about Arthur confused her now. She wasn’t sure whether she knew him or not. Whether she liked him or not...

 

 

*

 

 

Adele finally died a few days after Gwen’s birthday. She knew immediately that there had to be something wrong when old Bernard’s cart came into the courtyard early one Tuesday and she wasn’t on the back of it.

 

Gwen had packed some food and water, just in case her old Nana was simply bedridden and needed some help, but deep down she knew as she walked to that cottage the old woman would be gone from this world. For the last ten years Gwen had been dreading this moment. It was remarkable that it hadn’t happened many years before.

 

It was recently, however, that Gwen started to brace herself for her grandmother’s death. Adele had voiced to her only the night before as she climbed onto the cart to take her home, “I feel especially tired tonight. I might just go to sleep and never wake up, my dear girl.”

 

The young girl smiled sadly, “You’ll wake up. You always do.”

 

Adele had chuckled wearily and cupped Gwen’s chin.

 

“Such a good girl, you are. Such a beautiful girl...” she moved her hand slightly to observe her granddaughter’s face, “I wish you wouldn’t tie your hair back, Jen dear. You have a heart for a face and it should be framed by your lovely hair.”

 

Gwen nodded. “I’ll remember that, Nana.”

 

She had watched as the cart pulled away with Adele on the back and she had known even then it would be the last time.

 

As she reached the small cottage at the edge of town, Gwen opened the door – for it was always unlocked – and found the small old woman lying peacefully in bed. It was the best way to go and her only regret was that she hadn’t been there to put her grandmother to her final rest. It was nonetheless a comfort to see this woman who had lived to such advanced age, who had outlived her husband and their twelve children, had passed over so quietly and without fuss.

 

It was what Adele would have wanted.

 

Gwen calmly walked home to tell her father and brother the news. They similarly accepted it with minimal distress as Adele’s passing had been a long time coming.

 

Tom sent Elyan back in a cart to collect the body while he informed his strikers and closed the fort for the morning, so they could gather a pyre and cremate her. He let their neighbours that his mother-in-law had died and told Gwen to tell the local administrator and Gaius.

 

Walking to work with the knowledge that her grandmother was dead had a strange effect on Gwen. It wasn’t so much sorrow as it was confusion. She had lived her whole life with her grandmother as a constant presence. When her mother died, Gwen remembered being simply heartbroken. Right now, she couldn’t quite believe she was about to face her first day without her grandmother...

 

She decided to call on Gaius first. She knocked on the door and walked in to find him making potions, as was accustomed to him at this time in the morning.

 

He immediately engaged her in conversation.

 

“Oh Gwen,” Gaius began with relative cheer. He seemed to be in a slightly uplifted mood, like he had received some interesting news. It made the young girl feel sad that she was there to deliver some sad news. Gaius spoke again before she could begin, though, “I was hoping you would drop by. I have a favour to ask you?”

 

Gwen smiled weakly, “What can I do for you?”

 

“I’ll be getting a new apprentice,” he told her immediately. Her expression shifted to one of surprise; Gaius would never take on a dogsbody! He had reached this point in his life and _never_ spoken of getting one before. “It’ll be another month or so before he’s ready to come but I wanted to ask you, when he does come, if you could help him get around. He’s the same age as you.”

 

She nodded politely, “Of course I will, Gaius. What’s his name?”

 

“Merlin,” Gaius replied. “He’s the son of a very old friend of mine. He comes from Cenred’s kingdom but only an outline village, so he should have no trouble crossing the border.”

 

He then realised that Gwen must have come to see him for a reason too.

 

“Now, Gwen,” Gaius said. “What can I do for you?”

 

The young girl looked down and cleared her throat. She found it hard to say the words now she was being forced to say them, and it took a lot of strength to push it out. Being confronted with these words suddenly made the whole thing real... and finally the sadness inside started to take hold of her.

 

“Nana’s died,” she said weakly.

 

Gaius immediately felt guilty.

 

“Oh Gwen,” he said sympathetically. “I’m so sorry. Here I am wittering on...” he pulled her in for a hug, which she happily fell into. “It was peaceful, I hope.”

 

“Yes,” Gwen croaked into his shoulder. “Very peaceful, thank God.”

 

 

*

 

 

“Arthur, may I ask you a question?”

 

Cai had managed to find a moment alone with the prince after training. He had taken a good smashing from Arthur but seemed completely unbothered by it. His fighting ability had long since been outshone by him just as it should be, and now he chose to be the wicked little voice in the prince’s ear rather than someone who could impart wisdom on a practical level.

 

Arthur winced at the grin on Cai’s face, but he nodded.

 

“What is it?”

 

“You father was asking me the other day,” the knight added, indicating immediately that this question was something Arthur ordinarily wouldn’t answer frankly. It also meant he had no choice but to answer. Cai smirked as he said it, “Have you been with a woman yet?”

 

A piece of armour Arthur was taking off crashed onto the floor.

 

“I’ll take that as a no,” Cai said in amusement.

 

The prince bit his lip. A part of him felt that he should have lied and come up with a witty rebuke to get Cai off his back, but it probably wouldn’t have done any good. Arthur knew that if Uther had asked Cai about this, and he knew Arthur was sexually active, he would have told the king straight away rather than going on a merry-go-round of asking the prince when he damn well knew what the answer was!

 

Arthur knew that Cai just wanted to make sure he felt awkward. It was his speciality.

 

“Why does my father want to know something like that?!” he finally asked.

 

“Because it’s the passage of every man,” Cai replied in a general voice. That was _most definitely_ something Arthur didn’t agree with; he felt he was more of a man than most of the knights, including Cai, and Cai would sleep with anyone. He would probably try to seduce his own reflection.

 

“You need not have a woman if you’d prefer a man,” the knight helpfully added, as if to add clarity.

 

Arthur glared, “No I certainly would not prefer a man!”

 

“A woman it is then,” the knight said, not surprised. He watched Arthur curiously as he continued to remove his armour, quickly. He could mentally see into the young man’s mind; he was thinking about walking out of this room and away as soon as humanly possible. “If you are having trouble, I could try and find a suitable woman for you, someone experienced...”

 

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Arthur said, mortified.

 

He could imagine the type of woman Cai would haul out as a ‘suitable woman’ for him. It would mostly like be a woman of ill-repute or a slightly older servant girl with morals as loose as her apron strings, for Cai knew and had already slept with them all. Some of them he continued to visit when he felt like it and the thought of sharing a woman with Cai would be humiliating. Arthur knew that such a woman would not be able to resist the desire to gossip about having been with the prince to Cai, and Cai in turn would gossip to everyone else.

 

The last thing Arthur wanted was for such a personal thing to become the object of ridicule at the court. Not least because his lack of experience was certain to mean that his sexual prowess would be inevitably be clumsy at best.

 

“I can find someone for myself,” he finally said tartly. “And I’d prefer to do it on my terms – not my father’s or yours.”

 

“Only if you’re certain, because I know this one woman—”

 

“Thank you, Cai,” Arthur said conclusively, making it clear he had no desire to continue this conversation. It made the older knight grin in amusement and the prince blush. But he held firm, “And you can tell my father to talk to me himself rather than get others to do it for him.”

 

Cai laughed, “Why don’t follow your own example and tell him yourself?”

 

Arthur pouted, although he knew Cai had got him there.

 

It was then the elder knight placed a hand on the young prince’s shoulder, something he did not appreciate, and said, “Look, sire – I hate to be the one to tell you this but it’s not just because your father wanted me to ask you about this. The other knights are... talking.”

 

The prince scowled, “What do you mean ‘talking’? Do they all think I prefer men too?”

 

Cai laughed, “No, else they’d have heard about it by now.”

 

He took a moment’s pause before he made his next statement, as if he were passing on grave and terrible news.

 

“They think you’re not up to it, my lord,” he finally said.

 

Arthur raised an eyebrow, “Not up to what?”

 

“To lead the army,” Cai elaborated. “I know you’re still young, but the day will come one day.”

 

The younger man laughed aloud at Cai’s suggestion. Where they even having the same conversation anymore? What did military prowess have to do with bedding a woman?

 

“So,” Arthur said, just to make Cai’s points clear, “the other knights don’t think I could lead them in battle... because I don’t sleep around?”

 

Cai laughed and slapped the prince hard on the back. He really didn’t like that, and this time he decided to let him know.

 

“Will you stop doing that?”

 

The elder knight cleared his throat. “Pardon me, my lord but yes.”

 

“Why on earth do they think that?” Arthur quizzed him. “It makes no sense.”

 

Cai sighed, “Because many of them are old traditionalists. I mean, when I was your age, well actually a few years younger, my mother arranged for me to deflower one of her younger maid servants. My father didn’t have a clue and would have been disgusted if he did. But my mother still arranged it for me; sent the girl up to my chambers and everything. Of course, she wasn’t to know I was already in the process of having her elder sister—”

 

Arthur grimaced; the other knight carried on...

 

“—and I ended up having both maids in the end,” Cai went on with an eerily nostalgic look on his face, “At the same time on a few occasions. It was a good time. My point is that it was a rite of passage for a man to have a woman before he could truly be considered a man. That’s why your father asked about you and that’s why the knights have doubts about you.”

 

The prince’s eyebrows were raised.

 

“What a load of nonsense,” Arthur said mockingly. “Boys do not become men by penetrating a woman any more than men become warriors by it. I’ll hear no more of this.”

 

Cai shrugged and turned to leave.

 

“Fine,” he said casually. “If that’s the way you feel. I only bring it up because I know first and foremost you desire the confidence of your men. They were brought up to believe that a chaste man hasn’t the stomach for real battle. They feel that such a man should join the church, not lead the army.”

 

Arthur watched as the knight left.

 

“If you want my advice,” Cai finished, “which you probably don’t but I’ll tell you anyway – find yourself a nice maid, someone who will be pliant and willing, and just get it over with. And if she’s a virgin, then all the better.”

 

“Why ‘all the better’?”

 

Cai smirked again but said nothing.

 

The prince shivered in discomfort.

 

The older knight poured himself out a cup of wine and took a sip. He gestured to the open corridor. “Hm?” Cai hummed in interest, “Speaking of which...!”

 

Arthur turned to look. It was Gwen.

 

He felt his cheeks blush at the sight of her and the knowledge of what Cai had just been talking about. In a random, disturbing flash of thought, he imagined Cai adding her as a notch on his bedpost too, and it make him feel suddenly angry.

 

He stood up and addressed her politely, “Guinevere.”

 

Gwen bit her lip and bowed her head. “My lord, I was looking for Sir Ector.”

 

“My old man’s not here,” Cai replied quickly. “He’s in a meeting with the king, but if you tell me what it is, I’ll pass on the message.”

 

In her anxiety Gwen just blurted it out in nervous but matter-of-fact way.

 

“I just need to let him know that my grandmother has died,” she said stoically. “That’s all.”

 

“Oh,” Cai said indifferently. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll let him know.”

 

She bobbed a curtsey again.

 

She just wanted to leave.

 

“Thank you, sir.”

 

She glanced at Arthur. His expression was more sympathetic not just at Adele’s death but how out of sorts Gwen seemed. It made her feel ashamed and him lost for words. Except these ones, “I’m sorry, Guinevere.”

 

Gwen stared at him for a second. “Thank you, sire.”

 

She then slowly turned to walk away. Once she was turned and walking, she walked as fast as she could to get away from the two men, away from the castle and home to help prepare her grandmother for her pyre. That’s all she wanted to think about. She didn’t want to have to think about the tension she felt whenever she gave into Arthur presence.

 

At least no more than he did at the same moment. It felt wrong to be having these burning feeling in his stomach at a time like this, while she was vulnerable and mourning for her grandmother.

 

“God,” Cai said once she was gone. “She’s coming along nicely, isn’t she? I know she’s a bit frigid, but I wouldn’t mind—”

 

“Don’t,” Arthur said firmly. “Just... don’t even say it.”

 

Cai chuckled, “What? Fancy it yourself, do you?”

 

The prince turned to walk out the back door at the other end of the room. He had had enough of Cai for one day. “What I feel is irrelevant,” Arthur told him. “Don’t! Don’t talk about her like that and don’t go near her.”

 

“So, you do fancy her then?” the knight pressed on. “Well, halleluiah! Come now, Arthur. You really should learn to share—ah!”

 

Crash. In one swift movement Arthur had twisted Cai’s arm behind his back and shoved his face down hard against the table. It had taken him by surprise, but Cai was more amused than anything else.

 

“My, my,” he muttered up to Arthur. “You’re a lot stronger than you used to be. I’m almost proud.”

 

“Listen to me,” the prince said civilly, while twisting his ‘tutor’s’ arm slightly harder. “You think you’re proud of my strength now, just wait until I use it break your arm. If you so much as breathe in Guinevere’s direction in a manner I don’t like, that’s what will happen. Are we clear?”

 

Cai grunted, his arm really starting to hurt. “We’re clear.”

 

Arthur let him go.

 

The older knight yanked his arm about to get the blood flowing again. He had thought for a moment there that his muscles might tear like a cooked chicken wing.

 

Arthur smiled with false pleasantry and whacked Cai on the forearm he had just been oppression. “Excellent,” he said. “I’m so glad we understand each other.”

 

 

*

 

 

It was evening by the time the pyre was build and Adele’s body was cleaned and wrapped up ready for her cremation. They could have left her to the town mortuary, but the family hadn’t wanted that for her and took it upon themselves to see her off, as was traditional among families in Camelot.

 

A few people including Gaius turned up outside the city to see her off. Many of them were neighbours who could spare the early evening from work. Other had given their condolences to Gwen, Elyan and Tom as they all headed outside the city with their small group.

 

Tom and Elyan gently placed her body on the pyre before they lit it.

 

Very few words were said by the family although Elyan did say a small eulogy. “The last time we were here was when our mother died,” he said, looking to Gwen specifically in the crowd. “Nana had said then that she was not long for this world, yet the world kept her for another twelve years. At least she won’t be alone on the other side.”

 

They stood and watched the flames.

 

“I am grateful you came, Gaius,” Tom whispered. “It was a little out of your way.”

 

“Adele was a good woman,” Gaius replied. “She deserves my homage and you all deserve my support.”

 

Elyan walked over to his father to speak to the physician himself and offer him thanks, leaving Gwen to stand at the front alone. A couple of hands patted her on the shoulder, telling her how sorry they were for her loss, but she barely heard them. Although it had only been a day since she found her grandmother dead, it felt as if it might have been an eternity.

 

Then she felt one hand clutch her shoulder warmly but say nothing.

 

She turned her head and looked up. The cloaked figure also turned to look at her, lowering his hood slightly so she could see it was him.

 

Gwen’s heart skipped a beat.

 

“I just wanted to make sure you were all right,” Arthur explained, keeping his voice down so that no one would recognise him. He didn’t want this to reach his father. He still wasn’t certain how he would react to finding out he still associated with his two ‘commoner’ friends.

 

Gwen blinked away the water in her eyes and turned back to the pyre, “I’ll be fine, I think. She was old. It was her time. I’ll be fine.”

 

They watched the pyre in silence for a while.

 

She then spoke quietly again. “We’re going to scatter her ashes on the hills above Camelot. It overlooks her old cottage.”

 

Arthur nodded and smiled comfortingly, “That’s good.”

 

The whole time he kept his hand on her shoulder.

 

 

*

 

 

They saw Arthur again a few days later.

 

He had heard on the grapevine, and by that he meant Morgana’s snarky mouth, that Gwen and Elyan were there clearing out all their grandmother’s valuables. As soon as he heard about it, Arthur wanted to go and see them. He liked to think in his mind that he could help them or something.

 

Yet even as he was thinking about, Arthur knew deep down he was going to he could see Gwen. He had been concerned by the way she found it hard to express her grief at her grandmother’s pyre. Arthur had always felt that people – especially girls – should just cry their eyes out when someone they cared about died.

 

That was something Dagonet had always said: “Men don’t cry as easily as women do but that’s the wonderful thing about women; at least they see no shame in crying.”

 

The only experience Arthur had in living memory of the death of someone close to him and his family was when Morgana’s father Gorlois died. He had always been kind, friendly and noble, and his sudden death had been a shock to everyone. Morgana had wailed almost constantly for over a month after. Even Arthur had to take some time out to grieve. Dagonet had said it would be good for him to maybe sit alone and mourn in private.

 

“That’s what I intend to do,” the old knight had said shakily.

 

But Arthur had found watching his father deal with the grief the hardest. It was obvious to the eight-year-old that his father did want to mourn but felt he couldn’t. He felt he had to bottle it all in and appear ever stoical. He wouldn’t even mourn in private. He just kept it all in and made himself sick with it...

 

That was why Arthur felt anxious over Gwen’s inability to express her grief properly.

 

It was probably a foolish thought, but Arthur thought he might be able to help Gwen feel better. So that lunch time he mentioned in passing to his father, Cai and Sir Ector – all of whom had come to lunch – that he would go out for a ride that afternoon, as an excuse for his whereabouts.

 

“Would you like Cai to go with you?” the king suggested immediately.

 

Arthur cringed.

 

“I wouldn’t want to put him out,” the prince replied.

 

“I wouldn’t be put out,” Cai said cheerfully, knowing full-well where Arthur was going. “I have the energy of a horse, me.”

 

Arthur kicked his co-called ‘tutor’ under the table.

 

It shuddered.

 

The knight hissed a little in pain but still grinned, “Ow! I still wouldn’t be put out.”

 

“Even so,” the prince gritted through his teeth. “I would like to be alone. As much as I enjoy your company,” Arthur added with an insincere smile. He then looked to his father, “So if there is no business here, I would like to be gone until evening.”

 

“Until evening?” Uther said with surprise. “I never took you for a lone wolf, Arthur.”

 

Arthur made no reply to him other than to make sure there was nothing he had to do that he had forgotten.

 

“So, is that all right with you, father?”

 

Uther took a bite from his bread.

 

“Very well,” the king agreed finally. “I’m sure Camelot will cope without you for a few hours.”

 

Satisfied he had got his way, Arthur made good to leave before his father changed his mind or found some excuse to keep him. Having had enough to eat, he dabbed his lips and quickly made for the door, thanking his father as he went.

 

“I shall see you this evening, father,” the young man said politely.

 

Uther watched him with a curious eye. There was something going on inside Arthur’s head, but the king couldn’t quite place what it was. Nonetheless he smiled kindly and nodded, “Enjoy your trip.”

 

“Good ride, your highness,” Ector said, lifting his cup.

 

Arthur smiled, nodded respectfully and left.

 

Uther turned his attention to Cai as soon as the door closed.

 

“Do you know where he’s really going?” the king asked.

 

That much he could tell; Arthur was lying.

 

Cai smirked, “I believe he is going hunting, my lord.”

 

“Hunting?” Uther said in confusion. “I thought it was just a ride he was going on.”

 

“Indeed, my lord,” the knight whispered, weary of his father listening. He leaned closer to address the king. “Perhaps the sweetest ride of his life, if he can find it...”

 

A shine glimmered behind Uther’s eyes and he glanced at Ector cautiously.

 

Everyone knew that Ector to be a prude. He had always believed that intercourse was sacred and only fit for the marriage bed, and even then, only for procreation. Of course, this was suspected by many to be linked to his rumoured problems with impotence. He escaped ridicule, however, as everyone also knew that his wife spent more time in bed with her maids than with him.

 

Uther leaned closer to Cai to reply, “Does he have his eye on one such ride?”

 

“I believe so, my lord,” Cai chuckled, pleased that the king understood his meaning. “I dare not say who it is as the prince has already tried to break my arm, claiming hunter’s rights on it.”

 

“And what is the creature he is ‘hunting’ like?”

 

“The prettiest little fawn I have ever seen, my lord,” the knight grinned. “Small, young, sweet... and hopefully soon to be pliant beneath our prince’s grasp. Were it not for a vow I made to your son not to lay my arrow on her, I would be in pursuit of her myself right now.”

 

“He has gone that far, has he?”

 

Cai winked, “ _Noli me tangere; for Caesar’s I am, and wild for to hold, though I seem tame.’_ ”

 

Uther chuckled.

 

Ector overheard them mention ‘fawn’ and ‘arrow’.

 

“The young deer’s flesh is very sweet and tender,” he agreed.

 

The two other men burst out laughing at the irony of Ector’s words.

 

“Indeed,” said the king knowingly sipping from his goblet of wine. “The sweetest and most tender flesh of all is that of a young, common hind...”

 

 

*

 

 

Arthur changed into less formal, more comfortable clothes and downed his infrequently worn cloak so that he would not be recognised by another else passing by him. He knew to go just a little beyond where a scattering of shacks and shanty houses stood. The sturdiest of them all was Adele’s former home, set far apart from all the others, secluded and alone.

 

Her husband had built it some many years ago before Uther was even king of Camelot and the city was still underdeveloped, and she had never left.

 

Arthur dismounted his horse around the side and quietly approached the front door, which was open and outside was a small cart loaded already with a few pots and pans and furniture.

 

Inside he could hear Gwen and Elyan talking.

 

“What about this?” Elyan said, pulling out what looked like a large folk. “Could we sell this?”

 

Gwen rolled her eyes, her arms full of sheets and patchwork clothes, and freed one hand to take it swiftly from him. “The only thing this is good for is melting it down. Dad might find it useful.”

 

“Fine,” Elyan said, uninterested and clearly used to Gwen telling him off after a morning of the same thing. He rummaged about the cupboards, pulling out loads of clay bowls. “Can we do anything with these?”

 

“What did I tell you before?”

 

She put everything she was holding down on the large table in the middle of the room and began to pile up the numerous clay pots. “Anything that’s metal, we take. Anything that’s clay, we sell.”

 

“So, we can sell them?” he said, unconvinced. “They look a little old and grotty.”

 

“They’re perfectly fine,” Gwen told him firmly. “All they need is a polish and they’ll be as good as new.”

 

Elyan sighed sadly, taking the pile Gwen had made over to the table. “It’s so strange going through Nana’s dingy old cupboards. It’s so weird to think she’s actually gone.”

 

“I know,” Gwen sighed, patting his back. “I knew she was old but... I liked to think that maybe she would never die.”

 

Elyan chuckled, “I know. I thought she’d cheat death and live forever.”

 

Arthur watched them both, smiling.

 

He knocked hard on the wooden door.

 

The two siblings both span around to face him.

 

“Arthur!” Gwen gasped, before she remembered herself and curtsied respectfully, “My lord.”

 

The prince was taken a little aback by Gwen’s formality but he said nothing of it. Instead he just smiled and greeted her with a nod, “Guinevere.” He then looked to Elyan, who seemed a little bit out of sorts. It made Arthur feel sad to think that these two people who he spent hours of play with treated him as if he were some sort of distant idol, “Elyan.”

 

Elyan bowed clumsily, “Sire... we—we were just, um, well...”

 

“Clearing out our grandmother’s things,” Gwen finished for him.

 

Elyan chuckled awkwardly. “Yeah, that. Is there something... wrong with that?”

 

“No, of course,” Arthur said, stepping into the house. They could just about see under his plain cloak that he was dressed very casually. “This isn’t a formal call. I actually came to see how you were, and...” he spoke as if the next few words were difficult for him, “I came to ask if I could help you. Clear up, I mean.”

 

Gwen and Elyan looked at each other. The same question was going through both their heads.

 

“Why would you want to do that?” Gwen said, finally asking the question that had occurred to them both.

 

Again, Arthur felt a little offended but he could understand their uncertainty. Since his father forbade him from playing with them anymore, they had spoken very little. It was only the odd greeting, the odd asking after each other’s well-being, the odd update about the family...

 

“Because I want to,” he replied.

 

A long pause followed.

 

He sighed, “I... really just want to. I know we aren’t kids anymore but I genuinely do still care.”

 

Elyan took a sharp breath.

 

“Wow,” he said slowly. “But won’t your father be angry if he finds out you’re... consorting with commoners?”

 

Arthur shrugged, “I’m a grown man and besides, he doesn’t need to find out.”

 

So he stayed and helped them place the objects that had once belonged to their grandmother onto the cart to be driven away. He instructively wanted to stay close to Gwen and help her back away the delicate objects like the clay bowls, cups and pots. Yet when he came eye to eye with her, he prayed to be miles away from her.

 

At one point their hands touched.

 

It was just a small, tiny moment in which the delicate skin of their fingers touched... yet you would think they had been burned by a candle. It sent a flush of heat right through Arthur’s body and Gwen’s. They snatched their hands away from each other before either of them knew what they were doing, and were left for a few seconds to ponder the zap of urges that shot up their arms and straight to their hearts.

 

They glanced at each other.

 

Somehow, Arthur managed to smile.

 

Gwen smiled slightly back.

 

“Are you two alright?” Elyan said, popping his head around the door. “Only, I’m kind of out of things to load. Think you could hurry it up?”

 

They turned away from each other.

 

“Now, Elyan, is that anyway to talk to your sister?” Arthur asked.

 

“I thought you were going to say ‘is that anyway to talk to me?’”

 

Arthur glanced over his shoulder at him, still smiling, “That too.”

 

Gwen sealed a wooden box up, and quickly handed it to him. She was very careful not to touch Arthur’s hands this time. “If you could pass that on to Elyan,” she said politely, and itching the back of her neck. “I’ll get started on these last things. Then we’re done.”

 

The prince obeyed her without a second thought.

 

He went outside and carefully handed the box over to Elyan, who finally took this chance to thank him.

 

“I’m really flattered you took the time out to come and see us,” he told his old friend as he slowly put the box down. “Especially seeing as we aren’t as close as we used to be.”

 

“Just because I couldn’t play with you anymore doesn’t mean I supposed considering you both friends,” Arthur assured him. He sighed and glanced back into the house, “Besides, I was a little concerned about how you two were hoping. Especially Gwen.”

 

Elyan glanced into the house too. They watched her work as they spoke.

 

“I know what you mean,” the brother agreed. “Gwen tends to bottle up her feelings. Dad and I... you know, we weren’t as close to Nana as she was. We’ve tried to get her to be honest about them, but she just forces back the tears and says, ‘I’m fine’ in that way that she does.”

 

Arthur made a half-smile, “That way which she tries to sound cheerful when really it’s all in her face just how bad she’s feeling.”

 

“Exactly,” Elyan nodded. “All shaky and ‘I’m fi-i-i-ne’.”

 

They continued to watch her.

 

“Although,” Elyan added after a moment. “She’s not quite as bad now. Maybe having company has cheered her up.”

 

He turned around to secure the box while Arthur kept watching her.

 

“Glad to know I’ve served one purpose here today then,” he said quietly.

 

At that moment Gwen glanced over and caught him watching. Arthur’s head snapped around again, and he turned to speak to Elyan again. “What do you intended to do with the house now that it was empty?”

 

Elyan sighed, “The place was falling to ruins anyway, and so it would be left to fall. It’s not owned by any landowners and the plot itself was worth very little. You couldn’t grow much on it or anything because it’s too hilly.”

 

He took a deep breath as he finished tying the fragile box down.

 

“Besides,” the young man went on. “We haven’t the money to fix this place up and sell it on. That’s why we’re taking anything valuable in the house.”

 

Gwen appeared with the very last box.

 

“Elyan!” she snapped, knowing how his words sounded.

 

“What?” Elyan replied with a shrug of the shoulder. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

 

“Maybe it is but,” she glanced at Arthur, and then walked over to the cart to place the last box down and whisper to her brother: “It’s disrespectful to Nana to talk of her belongings like that.”

 

Arthur had no words to utter. He felt it was more the circumstances than anything else. It really did feel like someone had died. Gwen and Elyan seemed to be opening-up to him again, but Arthur was still saddened by the fact that they still guarded some of their words. It was unbecoming of Gwen especially who he had always liked for being opinionated.

 

So, he fell back on the only thing he could; his memories.

 

“I am sorry for your loss,” Arthur consoled again, trying to justify his trying to change the conversation. He smiled, “I remember one time when I followed you both to the very end of the forest just over there.”

 

He pointed to where the trees that circled the side of the citadel ended, just over the hill from Adele’s old house.

 

“You were both going to see her and asked me to come along so we could play later,” Arthur went on.

 

Elyan smirked, “Yeah, and you were too scared to come out from behind the trees to meet her. I remember.”

 

“I was not scared!”

 

“Yes, you were.”

 

“I wasn’t!”

 

“You were,” Gwen said firmly, smiling ever-so slightly. “You were scared that if you left the forest, someone would see you and tell your father.” She paused for a second to lick her lips. Arthur watched the gesture keenly, staring at her lips instinctively. “You were also scared about meeting our grandmother.”

 

Arthur cleared his throat. “I never met new people well even though Dagonet was with me...”

 

“She saw you from a distance,” Gwen said.

 

“Did she?”

 

“Yes, she noticed you lurking at the edge of the woods and said, ‘Who’s that? Doesn’t he want to come down?’” the girl explained. “We told her your name was ‘Arthur’ and she said, ‘Like the young prince, is it? Well, I imagine it would be a popular name because of that.’”

 

Arthur gave a short chuckle.

 

Elyan tilted his head, “How is Dagonet these days?”

 

“Fine, as far as I know,” the prince replied with a sad sigh. The truth was he had not seen him since the Yuletide before last. It was the last time he had been at court. “I wanted to ask my father if I might ride out to his household in the countryside and visit him...”

 

He cursed the fact that Dagonet lived a day’s ride away from Camelot. Had he been closer, Arthur might have lied to his father by saying he was going hunting alone and gone to see his old tutor that way. Yet given his distance, Arthur had to ask his father’s permission before going.

 

Gwen tilted her head.

 

“Are you worried he’ll say no?”

 

Arthur snapped out of his dazed and turned to look at her. “I’m not sure what is keeping me back. I fear my father might expect more of me before he will let me have the freedom to see whom I please...”

 

He thought of Cai’s question to him about whether he had lain with a woman as an example. To think about it while looking at Gwen made him blush.

 

Nonetheless he smiled at her and she smiled back.

 

They looked away from each other, however, as soon as Elyan spoke:

 

“Well,” he said with drawn out breath, “we’d better get going, Gwen. Dad will be wondering where we are.”

 

“You mean he’ll be hungry and want me to cook dinner?” Gwen smirked in amusement.

 

“There’s that too,” Elyan agreed. “You know we can’t cook.”

 

She nodded and turned to Arthur to make a tongue-tied farewell. She was unsure whether to address him as ‘my lord’ or ‘sire’ or just ‘Arthur’. She thought he would prefer the third option, but Gwen never quite knew how to look the prince in the eye and say his name without feeling a pang dart straight through her heart. It was because of his reaction. A glimmer always shone behind his eyes whenever she said his name.

 

Gwen nodded her head respectfully and kept it down, so she wouldn’t have to look at him, “Thank you for your help... Arthur.”

 

“Only too happy,” was his short, soft reply.

 

She dared to look up again and was of course caught by the gentle glow in his eyes. It was sometimes hard to detect but it was ever constant and ever more noticeable when Arthur was smiling, as he was now.

 

He watched as Gwen and Elyan bid him a final goodbye and went off down the road towards Camelot on their way to take their grandmother’s life’s belongings home with them. Although he was unsure why, Arthur felt another sadness fall over him. He still could not pin-point why he felt this way, so he assumed it was the numerous reasons he had already considered and ignored it.

 

Gwen glanced back over her shoulder to stare back at him, having wondered if he was still there. They continued to watch each other for ten seconds or so before they both finally turned away; she to look at the road ahead of her and he to turn back towards the woods.

 

With a strange, sudden quixotic feeling Arthur lifted his hood up again and made his way up the hill and towards home.

 

 

*

 

 

It was late evening a few weeks later.

 

The sun was going down over Camelot and the young people of the lower quarters roamed the streets together in large groups of both boys and girls. They were all aged between fifteen and twenty-four, and they were all slowly pairing off into couples to do – well, ‘what young people do’ as the adults said with disapproving shakes of the head.

 

It was part of the natural course though for the lower orders. They had much more freedom than the upper classes to ‘explore their options’ before they decided to settle down and have children properly.

 

As one group of young commoners paraded down the main streets in a burst of giggles, two people were lagging. It was Elyan and Gwen.

 

Elyan, needless to say, was not too thrilled to have his younger sister on his back.

 

“Why are you even coming?” he called to her as she walked a step behind him, not able to keep up with her brother’s quick pace. “You’ll only get accosted.”

 

“Dad wanted me to make sure you didn’t get in trouble,” Gwen replied frankly.

 

She finally managed to catch up.

 

Elyan huffed in frustration.

 

“It’s not like I’m going out to do anything that he didn’t do when he was my age,” he muttered defensively.

 

The thought made Gwen feel a little awkward. “Last time you went out you got punched in the face,” she suddenly remarked, changing the subject slightly. “You had a broken tooth. You were lucky that Prince Arthur was there to break up the fight between you, Jack and Jack’s friends.”

 

The brother scoffed, “Twat...”

 

“Who, Arthur?”

 

“No, Jack,” Elyan said bitterly. “I can’t believe dad took his side too. I mean, I’m his son—he should listen to me when I say Jack is bad news but instead he bans me from the forge for a whole week.”

 

“You did punch Jack in the face and nearly break his nose,” Gwen reminded him jokily. “Arthur had to drag you off him, kicking and screaming.”

 

Elyan rolled his eyes, “It’s the last time I defend your honour, I can tell you.”

 

The fight had started when Jack had made an overtly ‘blunt’ statement about Gwen that Elyan could not let pass. Ever since his sister had burst into womanhood it seemed that all their father’s strikers wanted to tumble her, a fact that was oblivious to Gwen even now. To Elyan and Thomas, she was still a child although she had stopped being so – from Gwen’s point of view – many years ago now. In many cases she felt she was more mature than either of them. They were both dreamers while Gwen couldn’t help but be a realist.

 

Had she heard the remark said by Jack, she would have probably just looked disgusted and walked away. But Jack was usually very polite and well-spoken, and Elyan was jealous of how much more advanced he was at the smith’s art than he was. He always forgot to consider that there was a seven-year-age difference between them, and Jack had been working with Tom longer.

 

“Dad doesn’t want you to embarrass yourself again,” Gwen said again with a sigh. “For Arthur to have seen you stoop so low to pick fights...”

 

Elyan raised an eyebrow, “I thought you’d decided you didn’t like Arthur anymore.”

 

Gwen bit her lip, “I never said I disliked him. I just said I thought he’d grown a bit arrogant since the old days...”

 

“I can’t say I’ve noticed it,” Elyan said.

 

He and Arthur still spoke on rare occasions. If they met in the street or in a place where it was still considered proper for them to talk, they would say hello and swap stories before parting ways. It was a far cry from the games they used to play as boys and the class system came crashing down on their heads...

 

But Elyan felt quite pleased to even be on nodding terms with the prince.  He believed him when he told him Jack had provoked the punch (Mainly because when they did get to talk Elyan usually mentioned Jack with distain) and so Arthur did not charge him with disorderly behaviour.

 

Had he done so, he would have been put in the stocks.

 

“If he really was the prick you say he is—”

 

“I never said that about him!” Gwen protested.

 

“—then he wouldn’t have let me off with a warning the other day, would he?” Elyan finished.

 

Gwen glanced at her brother through her eyelashes, deciding to be frank again. “Personally, I think a night in the stocks would do you good.”

 

“Thank you,” Elyan said sulkily as they finally began to catch up with the others. He eyes a girl, Jane, who he quite liked – and who on good authority i.e. Gwen’s say so (which could be trusted more than other sisters) also liked him. He blushed and turned to speak to his sister again, “Listen... I’m not going to get into a fight. I’m just going to talk to her.”

 

Gwen raised a sceptical eyebrow, “Talk, eh?”

 

Elyan shook his head, “Don’t use that suggestive tone on me, Guinevere. It’s embarrassing.”

 

“For you or for me,” she giggled.

 

He glanced at Jane again; she also caught sight of him and smiled invitingly over. She also caught sight of Gwen and seemed a little bit disappointed to see her there with Elyan. This did not escape Gwen’s notice.

 

She sighed, “If you want, I’ll go.”

 

Elyan’s eyes lit up with gratitude, but he still felt a little guilty.

 

“Will you be all right getting home?”

 

“Of course,” she assured him. “It’s not that far. I’ll be fine.”

 

He grinned and tapped her gratefully on the shoulder. “Thanks, Gwen!”

 

She called after him, “When will you head back home?”

 

Elyan span around briefly.

 

“I don’t know,” he said cheerfully. “No later than midnight. I promise! I’ll meet you in the square after the bell tolls.”

 

And with that he bounded off towards where Jane was waiting. She seemed equally relieved when she realised that Gwen wasn’t coming over too. The two girls got on with each other but there were times when Jane wished Gwen wasn’t there, especially in the evenings when she and Elyan were out together.

 

Gwen didn’t mind, and she took no offence.

 

Slowly, she began to turn around and walk home. A part of her wanted to stay with the group of youngsters out on the town but she knew very well where many of these nights ended up, and there wasn’t a boy among the ones here she would be willing to ‘take the pain’ – as Agnes the cook called it – for. Moreover, she did not want to get tipsy on something and end up being taken advantage of by one of the equally tipsy lads from downtown. Gwen found herself happily agreeing to anything when under the influence.

 

Yet to this day she remained completely intact.

 

The reason was that whenever Gwen did go out with all the other servants from the palace or just neighbours, Elyan was always there to make sure that his sister was not accosted. It was a quiet arrangement Tom had with both his children; Gwen was to keep Elyan out of trouble, and Elyan was to keep Gwen from unwanted attention.

 

Gwen could understand Elyan’s frustration though with her watchdog attitude as there were times she wished he didn’t watch her back quite so closely. It was true that Gwen had little desire to go too far with any of the boys she knew from work, or down their street, or at their father’s forge... but that wasn’t to say she didn’t find male attention interesting.

 

She stopped in her tracks. If Elyan was going to be out late with Jane, then what excuse could she possibly give to their father for being Elyan-less without making it look as if he had given her the slip?

 

Gwen turned around and headed back towards the castle. She could go there, do odd bits of work, see if Morgana required anything else, wander around... she could easily fill the time before midnight. The city bell would easily let her know when she should head on to meet Elyan.

 

As she walked past the tavern, Jack caught sight of her. Noticing that she was alone, he quickly finished his drink and go up. Upon stepping outside the tavern, he called to her boisterously.

 

“Gwen!”

 

Jack was right in her face even before she had even turned around. A few passers-by glanced at them, but no one paid them much heed.

 

She smiled awkwardly. Elyan’s words about Jack were still fresh in her mind and, although she thought Jack was a well-meaning man deep down, he just couldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

 

“Good evening,” Gwen greeted him, eyeing the castle behind her to indicate she had somewhere to be – although she didn’t really.

 

Jack noticed her edginess. “Do you have somewhere you need to be?”

 

“No—well, not really,” Gwen stammered, unable to even think what she did for a living for a moment. Then she remembered and attempted to ‘right’ her words. “What I mean is that I—don’t really have to go in but I have some work I want to finish.”

 

“Ah!” Jack chuckled, obviously a little drunk from his mug of mead. “I thought as much. I noticed all the other servants were out on the town; drinking, rolling around in hay stacks, and doing God knows what else. I should have known you wouldn’t be a part of it.”

 

Gwen shrugged, taking a step away towards the palace.

 

“You know me,” she agreed, and pointed behind her. “I’d better get going.”

 

But Jack took Gwen firmly by the shoulder and turned her around. She noticed two old men heading home from work walk past; they could see she wasn’t interested in Jack’s attentions, but just ignored her.

 

“You shouldn’t have to be working on Saturday evening,” Jack said suggestively. “You should be letting your hair down—”

 

Gwen removed his hand from her shoulder.

 

“I like to keep busy,” she said firmly.

 

Jack nodded, “Of course you do—but who says you need to be waiting on a bunch of snobs to be busy. There are many ways a girl can keep herself...  busy.”

 

Gwen didn’t want to know what he meant by that!

 

She tilted her head sweetly, “You’d better go home, Jack. You’re drunk.”

 

He laughed out loud and with a great stumble, he lunched towards Gwen to take hold of both her shoulders this time. She wanted to back away but knew if she did Jack would fall flat on his face, and she wasn’t so cruel as to do that. So, she dutifully held him steady. He wasn’t much of a ‘threat’ in this state; Jack was incapable of holding his drink.

 

“I’ll walk you home,” Gwen said politely.

 

She tried to get Jack still, but he was purposely making it difficult, using the proximity between them to sniff the curls of her hair and hold her young but filling-out form against him.

 

“You smell so sweet,” Jack chuckled grossly right into Gwen’s ear.

 

Gwen tried to wiggle free, “Jack, let go! I can’t take you home if you don’t stand up straight—”

 

“What if I don’t want to go home?” the striker asked, clutching onto Gwen as he fell onto his knees before her. “What if I want us to stay here?”

 

Gwen felt embarrassed. Again, people watched but made no move to help. She couldn’t just leave Jack in the middle of the street, but she wanted nothing more than to lock him up in his house and forget about him. She could feel each set of eyes burn into her back.

 

She looked down at him.

 

“Everyone is staring at us,” she whispered anxiously.

 

Jack hung to her skirts like a child. “You’re so beautiful, Gwen,” he giggled incoherently. “I just want kneel here with you forever.”

 

Gwen tried to hoist him up. “Well, I don’t have forever. Get up!”

 

It was like trying to lift a sack of potatoes.

 

Then a familiar hand and voice came up behind Gwen and tapped her on the back.

 

“Is everything alright here?

 

She spun around and – to her embarrassment – she saw Arthur stood right there in front of her. The pair of them stared at each other for a moment.

 

Arthur seemed noticeably uneasy when he realised it was Gwen. The smallest of blushes appeared across his cheeks, but no one could see them from the dim light of the streets and the swift manner with which he turned away from Gwen to address his servant, George.

 

“Help this man to his feet,” the prince ordered.

 

The hapless George clumsily stumbled over to try and drag Jack off Gwen’s skirts and onto his feet. The striker laughed the whole time, finding George’s weak attempts of getting him to stand frightfully amusing.

 

Arthur faced Gwen.

 

“Was this man troubling you?” he asked blankly.

 

The maid looked down. “He is my father’s striker, my lord. I was trying to help him get home.”

 

Arthur looked down at Jack, red in the face from laughter.

 

“You need to be careful with drunks,” he told her sternly. “They’ll take advantage if they can.”

 

Gwen shook her head, “He isn’t the type, my lord. He’s a bit too out of it to do anyone any harm when he’s been drinking.”

 

Arthur turned his attention back to George. He was frustrated by his idiotic servant’s feeble attempts to get the other man to his feet. So much in fact that finally, after three or four more heaves from George to help Jack to his feet, Arthur himself stepped forward and with one great hoist got Jack up with no trouble.

 

Despite Jack being older by about seven years, Arthur was much stronger and well-built. It made Gwen felt a little bit flustered to see her old friend pick up her agitator as if he were a damsel in distress.

 

He then roughly lodged Jack against George, who stood there feeling a little silly.

 

“Take...whatever his name is, home,” Arthur ordered George firmly. “Do you know where he lives?”

 

George nodded meekly, “Yes, sire. He’s my cousin.”

 

“Then do it. Off.”

 

He waved his hand as if he were batting away a fly. George huffed and struggled to help Jack off on the right path towards his hut. It wasn’t too far away, thank God!

 

Gwen felt sorry for her fellow servant and felt she should help. She had not liked the way Arthur had waved George off and, in her mind, reinforced her perception of what a twat he could be even when he was being chivalrous. But she still did not suggest helping George herself, mainly because she wanted to avoid Jack for the rest of the night. So, Gwen knew she should not judge Arthur too firmly.

 

Arthur moved to pat her shoulder again but very quickly (and uneasily) removed it. Gwen stood staring vacantly at him.

 

He cleared his throat. “Are you all right?”

 

“Yes, my lord,” Gwen said, not moving an inch. “Thank you for your assistance.”

 

Arthur glanced at a passing couple, who seemed more interested in looking at Gwen now she was talking to the prince and leaned in to whisper to Gwen. “You needn’t be so formal, Guinevere.”

 

She looked into his eyes.

 

“There is every need, sire,” she replied, and bowed her head courteously. “Thank you.”

 

Arthur sighed, clearly not happy with her manner towards him. He remembered a time when Gwen would giggle (or at least smile) after he had whispered in her ear—even if it wasn’t funny.

 

“Are you headed back to the castle?”

 

“Yes, my lord.”

 

“Would you like me to walk you the rest of the way?”

 

Gwen’s heart skipped a beat. She denied to herself to reasons why this mere suggestion had excited her blood a little and politely declined.

 

“There is no need for you to go out of your way,” she said softly.

 

An old woman with a basket strolled passed them.

 

Arthur didn’t wait for her to pass this time.

 

“It’s no trouble at all,” the prince said keenly. His voice sounded less haughty and more... normal. If not a little weaker. It surprised Gwen a little and that surprise was evident in her eyes. He cleared his throat, “It really isn’t.”

 

Feeling a lot less angry about George now, Gwen smiled and nodded gratefully. “Thank you, my lord but there really is no need. I know the way and I doubt I will be accosted by any other drunks tonight. You go on your way to wherever it is you’re going—”

 

Arthur cleared his throat.

 

“Actually,” he said quickly, feeling himself start to lose her. “I was looking for your brother.”

 

Gwen’s eyes widened.

 

“Elyan,” she said, as if the prince wouldn’t be aware of her brother’s name. The dread sunk into her heart again, “Oh God! What has he done—?”

 

The old woman turned to look back at them.

 

Arthur took Gwen’s arm and led into a small alley behind the tavern. It probably didn’t do anything to help the situation, but he was a little tired of everyone looking at him. Once they were in the alley he could see the concern in Gwen’s eyes. It made him chuckle as he realised his action might also have keyed up her curiosity too.

 

“Gwen,” he said calmly, “Elyan isn’t in anyway trouble. You can relax!”

 

Gwen sighed loudly in relief.

 

“Then why did you want to speak to him?” she asked.

 

Arthur shrugged with a smile, “I just wanted to ask him something.”

 

“He’s gone out with girlfriend tonight,” Gwen said, still wondering what it could be that Arthur would want to ask her brother. “I’m supposed to meet him here at midnight.”

 

The prince sighed, “I see. Fine, it didn’t really matter...”

 

“Is it something I can pass on to him?” Gwen asked, helpfully.

 

Arthur looked at her side-ways. He dared not tell her what he had been planning on asking her brother about. It was a strictly man-to-man question and to date Elyan was the only true male friend he had ever had. There were the knights, but they were part of the problem Arthur wanted to address. He and Elyan still spoke from time to time, so he felt he was the best person to ask about what Cai said about him.

 

“Not really,” he finally said. “It’s... really something I can only ask him.”

 

“Oh,” Gwen muttered, and looked away into the street. Then maybe she didn’t want to know.

 

Arthur decided to change the subject back.

 

“So, would you like me to walk you to the castle?” he asked again.

 

Gwen looked back at him, “Only if you are going that way.”

 

He nodded respectfully. They walked out of the alleyway together and walked back towards the palace. As he had stepped out of the shadows, he seemed to merge into the prince once again, and barely looked or spoke to her the whole way. His eyes remained cold, focused and aware of their surroundings.

 

Gwen did not feel offended, though. She understood.

 

 

*

 

 

Elyan took a sip of his drink and went on. “So, the king put a stop to the three of us being friends. I see and talk to Arthur now and then. I wouldn’t say we’re ‘best friends’ but we get on alright. He knows who I am, and he’s nicer than me then he is to that poor bastard servant of his.”

 

“Right,” Jane said, unconvinced.

 

She was not sure how they had got on to this subject of how he and his sister used to play with the Prince of Camelot when they were children, but Jane still found it hard to believe. It was hard to believe that Arthur had, truly, come into contact _with common mortals_ during his childhood the way he was closely guarded and protected by his father’s men.

 

Still, Jane kept listening to Elyan’s fanciful story.

 

“But my sister,” he went on. “I don’t know what she thinks about him. She sees him every day at court, given that she works for what’s-her-name...?”

 

He clicked his fingers for inspiration.

 

“Morgana?” Jane said.

 

“That’s the one,” Elyan said, putting down his drink as if he had only just released he might have drunk too much of it. “Yeah, so my Gwen—my sister that is—she sees him every day. Sometimes she can’t shut up about what an irritating twit he can be, going on about how he’s a bit of a bully, how she doesn’t what he’s like now... blah, blah, blah.”

 

He picked up his drink again, craving it again.

 

Jane chuckled and slipped the mug out of her male friend’s hand to place it on the table again. She realised now that she would have to watch him.

 

He smirked.

 

“But then whenever I call her up on it, she gets all hesitant and embarrassed,” Elyan shrugged, sitting back in his chair. He then clumsily leaned over towards Jane was whispered to her as if he were imparting a great secret. “I don’t get her problem with him. If you want my opinion—”

 

“Not really,” Jane hastily said.

 

He ignored her. “I think deep down she fancies him rotten.”

 

She rolled her eyes and took a sip from the mug she had taken from Elyan earlier. “Everyone fancies Arthur...”

 

She put the mug down and smiled as brightly as she could muster.

 

“Did you hear that Gaius is getting a new apprentice?” Jane asked.

 

“Oh yeah,” Elyan muttered. “I heard about that ages ago...”

 

“He should be interesting.”

 

“I bet he’s not.”

 

 

*

 

 

Gwen hadn’t intended to stay in Arthur’s chambers long, merely take the time to thank him properly for helping her escape the embarrassing drunkenness of her father’s striker and to try and help him with whatever it was he had originally wanted to ask Elyan.

 

They sat directly opposite each other at the table.

 

Arthur decided he needed a drink. He had taken one before heading out to see Elyan as he needed a little extra courage to ask something personal, but he needed a double helping now he was talking to Gwen about it. He even poured out a drink for her out of sheer politeness. She didn’t take any of it, but she found it thoughtful.

 

It still felt a little awkward asking Gwen about this but at least he could trust her to be honest about it. Yet the reason for his awkwardness did not come from the fact that she was a girl but because she was Guinevere.

 

“Do you mean if I... ask you a question?”

 

Gwen smiled politely, “Ask what you want.”

 

He cleared his throat.

 

“Do people... talk about me?”

 

“How do you mean, my lord?”

 

“About me... personally,” he went on slowly. He fiddled about with his own fingers, now starting to feel anxious about what he reply would be. “Does anyone talk about what I get up to... in private?”

 

Gwen bit her lip. Arthur remembered how she did this even as a child. It was a sign that she was nervous or hesitant. It used to amuse him but right now he realised that it meant that people did indeed talk about him behind his back.

 

He sighed, “I’ll take that as a yes then.”

 

“They don’t say anything offensive, my lord,” Gwen quickly said, trying to soften the blow she had accidently delivered.

 

“No, no,” Arthur said, shaking his head. “I already have it on bad authority what people say about me but... I wanted to ask someone trustworthy.”

 

He glanced at her, holding his cup deftly in his hand.

 

“What do they say, Guinevere?” Arthur asked. “And speak freely.”

 

“They say a lot of things, my lord,” she said frankly. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

 

She was not too keen to admit what people said about him, not least because she had joined in the bad-mouthing from time to time. Gwen had never said anything horrible about Arthur; only denounced him of what he appeared to be in public, a bully.

 

Arthur looked across the table into her eyes.

 

“What do they say about my love life?”

 

That was specific enough and it made Gwen blush to be asked this. In that moment she decided she did fancy having a drink after all. She took hold of the goblet and took a big gulp.

 

Arthur tilted his head, “Come on! You were always honest with me when we were kids. Tell me what has been said.”

 

Gwen put the goblet down with a thud.

 

“It depends.”

 

“On what?”

 

“On who is talking about you,” Gwen explained, clearing her throat. “Some people claim you’ve been around the town more times than the tax collector. Other people claim you’re frigid. There is no one version.”

 

Arthur winced at the two stark contrasts. The latter one confirmed Cai’s version of what people said, that it was common knowledge (at least among the knights) that he was... pure. Yet the former comparison, which was so far from the truth he couldn’t understand where it could have come from, he disliked even more.

 

He set down his cup. “I see.”

 

Gwen also took another sip. She was not used to drinking that much and neither was Arthur.

 

It was generally accepted that as soon as a prince was old enough to be at court, he was old enough to drink something other than water. Arthur rarely ever drank at all as he found he disliked the hangover too much to really appreciate the initial warm feeling it felt him with.

 

He drank to relieve stress, nothing more.

 

For Gwen it was slightly different. The watered-down wine was much lighter than mead or ale or cider, the drink of the lower classes and the ones that Gwen had had a sip of in the past. It had always been when she was with her friends, never when at home with her father. Tom did not think either of his children was old enough to take alcohol and he was probably right – but Elyan liked it, and he always shared with Gwen if he had some.

 

Gwen disliked the taste it anyway and only drank under pressure from her friends. But the wine was quite nice compared to the working man’s beer, and so she found it easier to drink too much.

 

“Careful with that stuff,” Arthur commented after a long period of them sipping and saying nothing. “It’ll go straight to your head.”

 

Gwen nodded, “I’ll try to remember that.”

 

Another quick pause before Arthur picked up the conversation from before.

 

“Who are the people who say that I’m ‘a man about the town’?”

 

Gwen blushed again, “Hm? Well, most of them are the girls I work with. Cook says she thinks you must be a—”

 

She stopped and took another sip for lack of anything else to distract her.

 

Arthur matched her. “Cook says I must be a what?”

 

“Well,” Gwen went on, her ears burning. “She says that you must be a chip off the old block.”

 

The prince blinked, “Does she mean like my father?”

 

Gwen shrugged, “Seems likely, my lord.”

 

Arthur had not really wanted to know that. He had no idea what his father got up to now or when he was his age, but from what Cai had said it seemed logical that Uther probably had been about the town more times than the tax collector, as Gwen aptly described it. He chuckled as he remembered it, causing Gwen to relax a little bit at seeing he was not offended.

 

“That was a good analogy,” Arthur told her.

 

“Chip off the old block?”

 

“No, the one you said about the tax collector,” he replied with a smile. “I’d never heard that one before. It’s clever.”

 

Gwen smirked too. “It just popped into my head. I can’t think where I first heard it.”

 

They both drank again, which allowed another silent moment to pass. It was at this point that Arthur decided to be honest.

 

“It’s not true,” he told her openly.

 

She blinked, “What isn’t, my lord?”

 

Arthur glanced up at her. “I wish you would stop calling me that, especially when we’re not in public. You hardly ever called me that when we were children.”

 

Gwen nodded her head apologetically and decided to follow the order. “I’m sorry, Arthur. What isn’t true?”

 

He went on. “That I’ve been around the town more times than the tax collector. It’s not true at all.”

 

“Oh,” she said, not knowing another reaction.

 

“In fact,” Arthur began, then swallowed, and continued. “In fact, I haven’t been around the town at all. I haven’t even left this room, if you know what I mean.”

 

Gwen thought for a moment before she twisted her face in confusion. “No, I’m afraid I don’t. With all due respect, you probably wouldn’t be expected to leave this room... for...  that.”

 

The way she had phrased those last words tickled Arthur into laughter again. He had forgotten how much he missed her wise yet sometimes distorted and awkward words.

 

“I was trying to euphemise it,” he told her. “What I mean is that any rumours saying that I... do that... are untrue.”

 

Gwen nodded slowly, and again said, “Oh?”

 

He tilted his head again and narrowed his eyes. “You don’t sound convinced.”

 

She widened her eyes before bursting into laughter again. The expression on his face was so priceless that she couldn’t help herself.

 

Arthur sat back in his chair, confused. “What’s so funny?”

 

Gwen put her cup down to regain her composure. She was not sure why she had laughed like that. It was probably a combination of the drink and the way he had taken what he said so seriously.

 

“You don’t believe me,” the prince finally said once Gwen was quiet again. “I must say you’re the only person I know who doesn’t...”

 

Gwen shook her head, “I wasn’t laughing at that, though I admit it does surprise me a little, considering who you are.”

 

“So, being a prince automatically makes me a skirt-chaser?” he asked plainly.

 

She closed her eyes tight, realising her mouth had run away with her head again. Gwen naturally felt ashamed with herself.

 

“What I meant was, well, you could have anyone you wanted.”

 

Arthur shifted in his chair and spoke so quietly that Gwen could barely hear him. “Not really.”

 

He watched her carefully. She looked so pretty in the glowing candle light as her skin looked healthy, smooth and warm, almost golden. Her hair was loose rather than scrapped back, obviously because she had not expected to be working tonight (and it turned out she wasn’t), and it became her so much. It was so lively and vibrant. Arthur remembered how Gwen used to grow her hair to below her shoulders when she was a child; it was pretty at shoulder-length, too.

 

“Are you all right, my lord?” Gwen asked after a long silence.

 

Arthur snapped out of his daze. “Oh, yes! I was just... thinking.”

 

Then he said something he knew, had he not been drinking a little and had he not been so keen to find an excuse to keep Gwen with him a little longer, (as he could feel her starting to wonder if she should leave), he would not have dared say. It was a moment of madness and innocence all bundled into one confession.

 

“You know,” he began, looking down a smiling at his wine cup. “I never told you this but when we were kids, I used to have a crush on you.”

 

Gwen nearly choked on her own sip at this. That had come out of the blue!

 

She put the cup down and smiled at him. In fact, it took all the composure she had left not to start giggling and treating it as if he was joking. But he had no reason to joke... so she went along with. “Really? I never thought so.”

 

It explained why he had asked her to kiss his cheek upon their last meeting, though.

 

To hear it now was a little surprising but mainly flattering. More flattering than she had ever thought it to be. Not that she ever wished Arthur had liked her that way.  Not at all, she lied to herself.

 

“I did,” Arthur confessed. “I remember sometimes hoping that Elyan wouldn’t be there, so I could be alone with you.”

 

She bit her lip and looked down into her two-third-full cup. “I used to think that too.”

 

“About Elyan?”

 

Gwen nodded, “Yes, although mainly because he was annoying.”

 

Arthur laughed out loud, louder than he would have done sober. It echoed through the room in a great burst of sound. “He wasn’t that bad.”

 

“He still is annoying,” Gwen went on. “He’s always getting into trouble. Dad’s at his wit’s end.”

 

The prince nodded, “Elyan has always got himself into a few awkward scrapes.”

 

He remembered one time when they were children at a local bully called Ethan had been picking on Gwen for reasons they did not know even to this day. He just used to say silly, pointless things to hurt her feelings. Maybe he had a crush on her too? Either way, Gwen had gone to Elyan about this and he had confronted Ethan. When the latter also started to make fun of Elyan, he punched him right in the nose. Ethan’s mother had told Tom, and he had grounded his son for a week.

 

That whole week Arthur and Gwen had been left to play alone. That was when he realised how much he liked her.

 

“He has always been protective of you,” Arthur concluded.

 

“I know,” she sighed. “I just wish he would settle down a bit. Instead he goes from one local girl to another and complains about Camelot being too small for him.”

 

Arthur smiled.  That sounds like Elyan!

 

“Maybe he needs to get away,” he suggested.

 

“Maybe he does,” Gwen admitted. “I just don’t trust him to look after himself. I know this sounds silly seeing as I’m his younger sister, but I feel more mature than he is.”

 

“That’s because you are,” Arthur said jokily.

 

She chuckled shyly.

 

“I still wish I’d done something about it, though.”

 

“Done something about what?”

 

“My crush on you.”

 

Gwen burst out laughing again. “We were children!”

 

“So?”

 

“So, what could you have done?”

 

Arthur thought about it for a second. He knew he would never have told her the truth. He wouldn’t have even said it now had it not been for his relaxed state of mind. Back when he was a child Arthur was certain that he would have been more likely to play jokes on her or pull her hair than tell her he liked her.

 

He glanced across the table at her again. His heart skipped beat as he realised how much time had passed since she asked the question and the lack of an answer.

 

“Who knows?” Arthur shrugged as casually as he could. His shoulders felt stiff and he was certain his attempt at looking nonchalant would appear forced to Gwen. He cleared his throat, trying to carry on, “I might have...”

 

She tilted her head. “You might have what?”

 

Another moment of consideration was all it took for Arthur to come up with a satisfactory answer. He grinned at her. “I might have kissed you.”

 

Gwen bit her bottom lip. She patted her palms against her cheeks, trying to smooth over her own blushes.

 

“You did kiss me,” she reminded him.

 

“No, you kissed me,” he corrected her, “On the cheek. I meant I would have kissed you on the lips.”

 

Gwen felt confused again. Her chest felt tight and her stomach started to cramp. So often she tried to convince herself that she didn’t see Arthur that way. Yet whenever Gwen tried to claim this, Elyan would roll his eyes in an unconvinced manner and tell her that ‘she liked him really’. And he was right; she did like him really, else why would she be here right now having a laugh with him?

 

The truth was that whenever she was around Arthur, Gwen always felt a fluster of feelings ignite inside her. She just couldn’t quite let herself admit it. It was much easier to tell herself that she had broken the ties of friendship with the prince when that evening in the corridor when she kissed him goodbye. She absolutely, and categorically, did not like him, and she _definitely_ didn’t find him extremely attractive.

 

Gwen cleared her throat awkwardly.

 

“I bet you wouldn’t have.”

 

Arthur raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you think so?”

 

He stood up from his chair and, carrying his goblet, came around to Gwen’s side of the table. He leant up next to her. Although he was still a good two or three inches away from her hand, she still felt the urge to move it suddenly away. The skin prickled from the fear of contact. Or maybe it was calling out for it.

 

“You remember my last request to you,” Arthur stated, not asked.

 

If Gwen’s blushes hadn’t been visible before, they must have been now. All she could do was hope the dim light would mask it. Instinctively, her eyes glanced down at the goblet in Arthur’s hand where he rested it in his lap.

 

She quickly looked away, having also glanced at something she shouldn’t have.

 

“You asked me to kiss you goodbye on the cheek,” Gwen asked slowly.

 

Arthur nodded.

 

“I actually wanted you to kiss me on the lips,” he confessed easily, blaming his sudden laxness to having taken a few too many sips of wine – although having the presence of mind to blame it on that. “But when I saw your face, I quickly said my cheek, so you wouldn’t think me strange for asking.”

 

Gwen looked up at him. His face looked like it was crafted from marble, lit up one side and shadowed on the other, and felt the nerves in her hands start the pickle again.

 

“Are you saying I owe you a proper kiss?”

 

Her mind was drawn to his mouth and she had said the words before she had time to think about it. Usually Gwen believed in following the heart as well as the head; but it was very difficult when both wanted her to do silly things. Like say that.

 

“You don’t owe it me,” Arthur chuckled, and his eyes shone with cheekiness. “But if there was a kiss going, I wouldn’t turn it down.”

 

Gwen breathed nervously, “I feel obligated to give you one now.”

 

Every part of her body started to tingle.

 

Arthur sighed in overstated way. He stood up straight and began to walk away. “Never mind,” he told her with a tint of disappointment. “It doesn’t matter.”

 

Then in an impulsive moment of madness, Gwen jumped out of her chair, cupped Arthur’s cheekbones in her hands and kissed him right on the lips. They both felt them tickle as they touched. Arthur could even feel her shaking. He closed his eyes and sunk into her lips.

 

Gwen realised after a few seconds that the kiss had gone on longer than it needed to. She moved (reluctantly, it felt) to pull away but Arthur’s lips moved with her, keeping them locked to him. To keep her still, he gently placed his hands on her shoulders. Then in the most romantic gesture of all, he tilted his head to deepen the kiss and gently used his hold on Gwen to stroke strands of her hair between his fingers.

 

She could just about hear it crackling by her ears. Just about, but not clearly.

 

Their lips finally broke with a loud, mutual glide.

 

They both stood staring heavily into each other’s eyes, a little surprised themselves.

 

Arthur meant to say something about the kiss, but nothing came to mind. Instead, and this was Gwen’s reaction too, he leant in again for another lip-lock. It was like something had literally clicked inside them. A feeling of realisation spread all through both their bodies, though neither was quite sure what they are longing for when they kissed. All they knew was that it was more than a kiss.

 

 

*

 

 

As the midnight bell tolled, Elyan pulled swiftly away from Jane’s lips as he realised it was time to meet up with Gwen. He was reluctant to go but he knew that he would meet the temper of his little sister if he left her waiting. Especially after she had let him go off and do whatever he wanted without her to keep an eye on him, against their father’s wishes.

 

He sighed, “I have to go and meet Gwen.”

 

Jane rolled her eyes.

 

“Can’t your sister wait a little longer?”

 

She stroked his cheek to beckon him to stay, but Elyan calmly removed it. “She was doing me a favour by letting me go out alone tonight. Dad can’t literally put me of a lead, so he tells Gwen to tag me instead.”

 

Jane pouted, “It’s not like she’ll tell him if you’re a bit longer.”

 

Elyan laughed, “You’re an only child. You wouldn’t understand how fine the line between collusion and betrayal is for siblings. I make Gwen wait too often she might refuse to help me out again – or worse, tell dad on me.”

 

“She wouldn’t have the guile to do that,” Jane said distantly.

 

Elyan cocked his head to one side.

 

“You don’t know my sister like I do,” he replied frankly. “I can always get the truth out of her – partly because she’s a bad liar – and if I can do it, so can dad. She just has to give him a reason to ask.”

 

He gave her an indifferent peck on the cheek and turned to leave.

 

“Fine,” Jane said shallowly. “If you leave now then I’ll just have to find someone else to keep me company.”

 

Elyan just winked at her, “You do that.”

 

He strode off down the street towards the tavern and left Jane speechless. Truth be told he wasn’t that bothered if she decided to target some other guy. After spending the last couple of hours with her he had come to realise that she was not as nice as she had looked from afar. Elyan had thought he would give her a chance but it did seem she was one of those people who caught everyone’s eye but lost their interest within five minutes of spending time with them.

 

As Elyan reached the square he saw that Gwen had not yet arrived. The last bell tolled as he leaned back against a wall and looked in every direction for her approach, not too concerned.

 

He waited for another few minutes.

 

The castle courtyard was slowly starting to quieten down, and everyone turned in for the night. Only the touches lit the area as many of the candles in the rooms above were being blown out every second.

 

He rolled his eyes, Come on, sis! Dad’s going to scold us both if we aren’t home soon...

 

 

*

 

 

Arthur tore his lips away from Gwen’s in shock at the sound of the midnight bell. It was more like an alarm going off in his head. It was only with its sound and the knowledge that Gwen would have to go now that his daze was broken.

 

It was a good thing too, as Gwen seemed to have completely forgotten about Elyan or going home. Since their second kiss erupted they had managed to find their way from the table to the bed. Neither of them had really thought about it. It had been an instinctive move. In a matter of seconds Gwen relived the moment Arthur pulled her close, then backed her against the bed post and, finally, when she threw herself down onto his mattress – much comfier than anything she had ever felt – before he resumed the kiss again. Or whatever kissing that reached this advanced stage was called.

 

It was more than kissing now as she was stroking his back while his hands were on her hips. It was more intimate.

 

Every nerve in their bodies tingled. Only Arthur seemed to have taken hold on reality again although he made no attempt throughout all twelve bell tolls to climb off Gwen and tell her to go. He just stared down into her dark, questioning eyes.

 

 How did this happen?

 

“It’s midnight,” Arthur finally said, gruffly.

 

“Yes,” Gwen quivered.

 

She could feel his pulse pounding against her own thundering heart. There were a few other things she had noticed. Not only did her body feel softer and hotter, but she could feel parts of her becoming more...  pliant.  In comparison Arthur felt anything but pliant against her. He felt hard and firm, which was oddly exciting. Likewise, he found her pliancy exciting, and that excitement was starting to show itself in another manner than Gwen couldn’t help but notice.

 

It scolded her loins to think that she was the cause of it. Gwen knew she was naive, but she still knew exactly what it was, and why it was happening.

 

Arthur finally shifted off Gwen to sit on the edge of the bed. The moment he did, the emptiness inside Gwen seemed even more noticeable.

 

His eyes were wide, as if forcing them completely open was the only way he could keep his senses.

 

“Didn’t you say you were supposed to meet Elyan at midnight?” Arthur asked slowly.

 

It finally dawned on Gwen,

 

She immediately sat up and stood up to straight down her dress. “Oh God!” she whispered to herself, “I didn’t even think—”

 

He turned to her.

 

“You’d better hurry,” Arthur said shakily. “You’re already late.”

 

Gwen felt very odd as she finally stood up and tried to right her dress before rushing off to meet her brother. Standing up felt like a chore and some of the most hidden parts of her body seemed to ache with loneliness, if that was possible. Again, the blankness inside her body was very noticeable.

 

She quivered as she tried to pull her shawl around her shoulders. It wouldn’t stay on as her body wouldn’t keep still.

 

Arthur tried to help her right it. The feeling of his hands against the skin of her neck and brushing against the material of her dress burned her like it never had before. She just wanted to turn around and kiss him again, but she dared not.

 

Reluctantly, he moved his hands away.

 

“You better get off,” he whispered.

 

The sound hit Gwen’s ears like a flare.

 

She swallowed hard and forced herself to smile. If nothing else, this entire situation felt extremely awkward. “Goodnight, Arthur,” Gwen said softly.

 

He forced a smile too, trying to ignore the growth in his front. He felt as if all eyes were on him although even Gwen’s eyes were resisting the temptation to stare.

 

“Goodnight, Guinevere.”

 

 

*

 

 

Gwen finally emerged from the castle five minutes later. She had to take a moment once she was outside Arthur’s room to ‘put herself right’ again before she could bring herself to face Elyan. It took the whole walk from Arthur’s chambers to the front door for the sensations of kissing and touching him wear off.

 

They were feelings that she didn’t want her brother to spot in her.

 

“Where the hell have you been?” Elyan whispered harshly when he finally saw her.

 

Gwen didn’t stop walking.

 

“I’m sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I just lost track of time...”

 

“There was a big bell!” Elyan scolded, following to catch up with her as she stormed past. “How could you have missed it?”

 

“I don’t know I just did!” Gwen said defensively.

 

Elyan finally noticed something off with her tone.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“No one has upset you, have they?” he questioned.

 

“No!”

 

He could sense something was wrong, even as they were in a semi-sprint.

 

“Gwen!”

 

“Oh, for God’s sake, Elyan,” Gwen finally snapped. She felt so frustrated. “You said we’ve got to hurry home, so let’s hurry home!”

 

And with that the two siblings made their mad dash home.

 

 

*

 

 

Tom was naturally angry when Gwen and Elyan finally came in that night. Although they had run all the way from the palace it was twenty minutes before they finally got home. Gwen had just taken so long getting out of the castle.

 

They had barged into the house to find their father preparing to pull on his hood to search for them. The sight of them settled his worried heart a little but then his mind turned to curious temper. He had never been a disciplinarian. Indeed, people were more likely to find Gwen scolding him rather than the other way around. But when he did lose his temper with his children, it frightened them both... because it was such a rare thing not to see him smiling.

 

So, the sight of his parental glare cut right through Elyan and, in particular, Gwen. She knew it was her fault.

 

“Where on earth have the two of you been?!” Tom snapped.

 

“I’m sorry, dad,” Gwen immediately before Elyan had a chance to come up with some terrible excuse. “It was completely my fault. I—got talking to a friend and held Elyan up. I’m sorry.”

 

Tom blinked with surprise. It was so unlike his usually punctual and organised girl. Had it just been Elyan alone, he would not have been surprised not matter how late it was he finally put on an appearance at home. He could not believe earlier that Gwen would allow them both to stay out so late and that had scared him enough to go out looking for them.

 

To find out that Gwen was the reason they were late, well, it just didn’t ring true.

 

“Didn’t you hear the bell, Gwen?” he asked, not really knowing how to react.

 

Gwen chuckled nervously and gave her father the most innocent and gawky smile she could muster. It was partly real, but mostly put on. He always seemed to soften up whenever she fell back on her girlishness.

 

“I heard it, but I kept thinking, ‘Another minute won’t make any difference’ and I carried on.”

 

Tom nodded, a little unconvinced, “For twenty minutes?”

 

Elyan butted in.

 

“It didn’t help that we were on the other side of town,” he lied.

 

Tom folded his arms.

 

Gwen winced, knowing that he was not buying her lie now Elyan had added his own. She could have kicked him at that moment, but that would have sealed their fate and – most likely – get them both confined to the house except to go to work. For Elyan, that really was clipping his wings as his work was at home... or at least in the forge next door.

 

“So, who was this friend you were speaking to?” Tom asked.

 

In that moment, Gwen’s mind went blank to every name of every person she could possibly call a friend. Instead of throwing up just one name that she could tell her father, her head suddenly filled with thoughts of Arthur. Of the way he had kissed her. Touched her.  Desired her.

 

And she had desired him.

 

Gwen could feel her cheeks reddening.

 

Tom tilted his head in wonder and Elyan stared at her with equal curiosity. They were both wondering what she was thinking and – dear God! She could not let them know or even guess. They would be horrified, and she would feel mortified if they knew what –  and who – she was thinking about.

 

Yet it was all her brain could think of.

 

So, Gwen took a chance and decided to tell her father the truth. It was the only way to guard her tell-tell expressions that told him she was lying.

 

“Would you believe me if I said it was... Arthur?”

 

Tom shrugged, “Arthur... who?”

 

“Prince Arthur, father. Do we know any other Arthur?”

 

The father looked between his two children. The moment Elyan realised that his father was judging them, he quickly altered his face to appear as neutral as possible to back up Gwen’s story. The truth was he was more fascinated at it than Tom was.

 

“Are you saying that you were with Prince Arthur?”

 

“Yes,” Gwen nodded, and she looked to Elyan. “Weren’t we?”

 

Elyan glanced at her before also nodding, “Yes, well – he was there for, um, some of the time. I admit I did spend most of the night with Jane but... Gwen was with me the whole time, I swear.”

 

Gwen rolled her eyes. And he thought she was a terrible liar!

 

Truth was that she could not lie to save her life.

 

But she could tell half-truths.

 

With budding confidence Gwen added, “Ask Jack tomorrow. He was drunk and needed help getting home. He bumped into us while we were talking. Arthur’s servant George took him home. Ask them.”

 

Slowly, she could see her father starting to relent.

 

He pointed firmly at her, “I will. And I’ll be asking Jane what Elyan got up to, although I doubt she would tell the truth.”

 

“No, but George would,” Elyan said, the first earnest thing he said all night. “You could probably even get Arthur to confirm it through him...”

 

Elyan was banking on Arthur lying for him. Well, telling a half-truth. He probably would...

 

“I mean,” Gwen continued, wanting to get her point clear. “I could hardly shoot off when I was talking to the prince of Camelot, could I?”

 

Tom was sceptical, but he decided to let it go for now. It was late; they still needed to wash and all of them had work tomorrow. They were safe and sound and that was all the mattered. While he didn’t think that Gwen was lying, he could sense uneasiness in her eyes as she spoke, like her mind was elsewhere.

 

“You’re both still grounded, though,” he said firmly.

 

Elyan groaned, “Father, we swear it’s the truth.”

 

“I’m sure it is true,” Tom nodded. “But you were both still late, and I have a feeling not the whole truth is being said here. I can see it in Gwen’s eyes...”

 

Gwen felt her cheeks burn again.

 

“And I can always tell when you’re lying, Elyan,” Tom said conclusively. “Gwen isn’t the only bad liar in this family. For the next week neither of you are to leave the house except for work. Now, hurry up and get to bed—”

 

“That’s not fair!” Elyan said, immediately protesting. “Gwen works in the castle, I work in the forge. I’m never away from you!”

 

“I think I’m being punished more than you, son,” Tom said with a tint of humour.

 

Gwen walked past them in a sweeping motion.

 

“I’m just going to have a quick wash before I settle down for the night,” she told them both.

 

She walked behind the curtain and drew it quickly; glad to be out of their sight. Her cheeks were burning with blushes. No matter how many times she tried to pat them down with her hands, she just couldn’t. The memory of Arthur’s kisses just kept flooding back into her head and illuminating her cheeks with a pretty, red tint.

 

It became her, but she wished she could settle her body down.

 

Awkwardly, Gwen remembered as she prepared the bowl of water to wash with that there was one way to settle her body down. She rested her hand on her pubis. The region just below it was the point causing Gwen the most discomfort and she could, she thought, make herself feel a little better...

 

But the sound of Tom harshly muttering to Elyan next door really put her off that course of action.

 

That was the trouble living in such a small house with two protective male relatives. Neither of them could quite believe that Gwen was no longer a child, but nearly a woman; a sexually curious young woman who was starting to find their constant presence irritating.

 

Gwen stripped down to her underwear, constantly looking over her shoulder at the curtain as Tom and Elyan walked around the small front room getting ready for bed.

 

She picked up the drying cloth and wrapped it around her body before sitting on a stool and dampening the flannel.

 

“Gwen,” her father called from the next room.

 

She nearly leapt out of her skin.

 

“Y-yes?”

 

“Don’t stay up too late,” Tom told her, knowing not to go too close to the curtain. “You still have to get up for work tomorrow.”

 

“I know,” Gwen said with a nervous smile that nobody could see. “Good night, you two.”

 

A mutter of goodnights wafted from Tom and Elyan’s mouths. She could hear them rustling around under their thin covers in their tiny little beds.

 

Gwen washed her face, neck, upper back and arms first, making sure to wait until everything went a bit quieter before she found the courage to drop the drying cloth fully and tend to her breasts, stomach, legs and...

 

She stopped briefly when she reached the top of her thighs.

 

She thought for a moment.

 

Now was as good a time as any.

 

Gwen dipped the flannel back into the bowl of water and squeezed it out before slowly folding it and placing it between her legs. Even though she was right there, as private as she possibly could be, with her father and brother safely asleep, she just couldn’t find the courage to tease the small nub that was the source of self-made satisfaction.

 

It felt tender, still taunt from her constant reliving of earlier when Arthur was on top of her, kissing her and working his way towards... well, it didn’t need to be said or thought.

 

Gwen knew how far it might have gone had it not been for Elyan and the bell.

 

The disappointment still hung over her.

 

She gently rubbed the soft material of the wet funnel against herself.

 

Yet she felt guilty and embarrassed. Even though she was feeling so tender down there, the mood was just completely wrong... not least because she could hear her father starting to snore next door.

 

Gwen quickly finished washing herself and prepared herself for bed, without seeing to herself even half way.

 

She would just have to wait for the thought of Arthur’s kisses to lose their effect on her.

 

There could be no privacy afford in her house here.

 

As she climbed into bed, Gwen wondered whether she would feel more comfortable using her hands. The bed covers hid what they were doing. It could be possible...

 

But again, she dared not.

 

Elyan started snoring lightly too.

 

They were both a constant reminder that she was not alone.

 

And that she was still seen as a child.

 

 

*

 

 

Arthur found it hard to settle that night too.

 

He kept thinking of Gwen lying beneath him and the swell of desire that had raged throughout his whole body that moment when she instinctively let him settle between her legs and he had felt his excitement grow against her. He thought of how gently she had stroked the small of his back; of the soft sweetness of her lips brushing against his; of what it would be like to have touched and explored her modesty...

 

Arthur remembered how he brushed against it, ever so slightly, and yet even under all their clothes Gwen had gasped with anticipation.

 

 She had been ready for him.

 

That knowledge kept Arthur wide-awake into the early hours of the morning...

 

His blood started to scold every organ of his body that it travelled to. He was restless. Usually when he felt like this, he had to fill his void with some physical activity like swordplay... but it was too early in the morning for that.

 

Yet even if it wasn’t, he didn’t feel he would be able to work off this excess energy with exercise. It wasn’t the right kind of activity.

 

Eventually he just couldn’t take the pressure anymore.

 

He slipped his hands underneath his bed sheets, down his body and gently undid his flies to relieve himself of his pains.

 

He took a deep breath as he softly began to work the shaft.

 

He closed his eyes and thought of Gwen again.

 

Her body had felt so warm.

 

Her kisses had been so hungry.

 

Her breasts had felt so soft. He had felt her heart thundering beneath them. It has been so profound that her left breast seemed to literally quiver.

 

The deep, dark colour of her eyes had been so hazy and lost in him. She had forgotten the existence of time, place and even her brother Elyan as they kiss passionately and instinctively readied themselves for the act which Arthur fantasised about enacting right now.

 

But his palm was a cold substitute for Gwen.

 

He knew so little about women. Many a time Arthur had heard Cai drone on and on about the dampness of a woman ready for sex. He remembered how he had spoken to another knight of how easily he had slipped numerous fingers into one woman, as many as three or four.

 

Arthur looked at his free hand as he tried to keep the pace going with his other. The thought of placing his hands against Gwen’s intimacy caused him to shake with both pious shame and guilty desire. It seemed immoral... but he wanted to do it so much.

 

He swallowed thickly.

 

He tried to imagine what it would feel like to touch the inside of her body.

 

It was easy for Arthur to conjure up an imagination in which he could plunge himself into that sensation of warmth and wet. Although the only likewise image he could compare it to be the feeling of slipping into a bath, it worked well enough when combined with the grasp of his palm.

 

Haphazardly, Arthur reached over to his bedside table and fished around in one of the draws to pull out a small white napkin. The whole time he tried to keep the movement of his hand going up and down to match the bubbling feeling that spread further and further into his stomach.

 

As he did so he imagined what might have happened had he come across Gwen in the street an hour earlier and the midnight bell had been the twenty-third hour bell.

 

Had that been so, would he have had the courage to stop kissing her? He had found the courage to motion her from his table to his bed. He had happily accepted her unconscious gesture of parting her legs, so he could slot himself between them...

 

Could he have found the courage to take his hand and slowly reach beneath her skirt? Would he have dared to touch that most secret part of her body?

 

With his fingers.

 

Would he have found the nerve to share his secret with her? It was hard enough to keep in contained beneath the material of his trousers. Arthur was certain that Gwen must have felt it. It had grown so hard, so fast that even he was not quite as fully aware of how tender it was until he had accidently brushed it against her body.

 

She had gasped.

 

The memory of her gasp sent another shot to Arthur’s cock. He imagined her doing it again, only this time against his pure, naked touch.

 

Would Gwen have allowed him to touch her?

 

Would she have allowed herself to touch him?

 

If she had done both – God! Then what would have happened. Would she have continued to touch him as he touched himself now? Or would they have given in to the ultimate carnal act.

 

The idea caused Arthur to open his eyes and slow down a little.

 

He didn’t know how to imagine it. It was so easy to imagine what it was like to touch these new, exotic things with his hands. But touching them with his...?

 

 Yet he wanted it.

 

He wanted it more than anything.

 

He wanted it.

 

He wanted her.

 

How could he possibly long so hard for something that he had never experienced? That he barely understood.

 

But he didn’t need to understand.

 

He knew he wanted it; the feeling of her entire self-wrapped around his own body.

 

Arthur knew why he wanted Gwen, why it had to be her he lost his innocence to ‘the way of men’ to, and it wasn’t just because she was beautiful. It was because he thought her to be a friend. It was because he felt a warm, deep connection to her that he could barely understand. She was the only person he knew who could fire up his loins and soothe his soul.

 

One, two, three, four last strokes and he finally came loose.

 

He came sadly into his napkin. The hot bursts that had born fruit from his lust for Gwen found themselves wasted in the palm of his hand. There was some satisfaction in having got himself off after she had been forced to leave him, aching with want.

 

But it wasn’t enough.

 

To lie alone in bed and pleasure himself to the thought of Gwen would never be enough for Arthur.

 

 

*

 

 

Gwen awoke early.

 

She decided not to disturb her father or brother and instead turned her attention to putting breakfast, lunch and dinner together for them, so she wouldn’t have to come home during the day. Given that Morgana usually kept her until ten at the latest, and Gwen liked to stay on duty for at least an hour after that in case her mistress needed anything, she preferred to stay at the castle all day than go back and forth.

 

Besides, she had no work at home to complete. The sewing was done, the house was tidy and the beds had all been freshly changed the other night.

 

Finding work at the palace would also hopefully keep her mind off  things .

 

As she prepared the leek soup for dinner, the porridge for breakfast and the cheese sandwiches for lunch, she wondered whether she would run into Arthur at any point today. She wondered whether she should avoid him. Seeing him literally just a few hours after she had let him kiss and fondle her felt embarrassing.

 

For the first time since last night Gwen had started to worry what Arthur’s view on her was now. She had incited their kiss and very happily allowed him to take her to his bed, knowing that there was a possibility – even though not a certainty – that sex would follow. While even now Gwen felt she would very gladly do it again, she didn’t want Arthur to think she might be...  easy .

 

He almost certainly didn’t have that impression of her, but there was still that fear he  might  have found her a bit forward. Especially since he had confessed to her that he was in no way experienced in the acts of love...

 

A jolt shot through Gwen’s body.

 

He had spoken as if he was a virgin.

 

He had been a little drunk and so his words might have been under or overplayed on that front, but there was something in Arthur’s manner that Gwen had identified with. When they had kissed, the feeling had been so exciting and new that neither of them had quite known what to do. They were ‘fooling’ around in his chambers, toying with the possibility of doing more than just kiss... and neither of them had quite understood what the course of action should be.

 

It was reassuring to Gwen.

 

Reassuring and unusual, as Gwen had always assumed that eventually she would become so tired of the local boys chasing her for her maidenhead that she would just give in to one of them just to get it over with. In herself, doing that wouldn’t feel right, but it’s what all the other girls ended up doing, even the ones who had the silly notion of waiting until marriage.

 

They all gave in to the pressure in the end.

 

Tom woke up just as Gwen was finishing up breakfast, having completed lunch and dinner, and plating it up for the two of them.

 

“Gwen,” he said distortedly. “How long have you been up?”

 

“Quite early,” Gwen confessed. “I’m not tired though.”

 

Tom sat up and looked over to Elyan, still sleeping. He nodded towards his son, “Give him a slap, will you? It’s about time he got up.”

 

Gwen gently shook Elyan awake.

 

“Breakfast is ready,” she said softly.

 

He sat up and stretched, “Thank you, ‘mummy’.”

 

Gwen rolled her eyes and placed the bowls on either side of the table. She opted to sit on the side of the table that Elyan was on so they could face their father together. A part of her still sensed he had not quite forgiven them for last night.

 

She was right.

 

“What time does Gwen usually finish work, Elyan?” Tom asked.

 

Gwen put her spoon down. “ I  finish work anywhere between ten and midnight.”

 

“Ten usually,” Elyan said, translating her words. He turned to his sister, “There is no way you are getting any extra free time if  I  have to spend all day in the forge with him.”

 

Gwen rolled her eyes, “Dad, you know I don’t work regular hours.”

 

“I want you home immediately after work,” Tom said firmly.

 

She sighed, “I realise that, dad.”

 

“So, give me a time.”

 

“I usually finish at ten but have always taken an extra hour in case Morgana needs anything else,” Gwen told him firmly. “It’s not my wish, but the king’s orders. My mistress suffers from nightmares. He would keep me longer I feel but Gaius has ensured I never stay any longer than fair. Any extra time I take is simply because I choose to do it.”

 

Tom nodded, “I want you home by half past eleven.”

 

“Alright, dad.”

 

The three of them sat eating in silence for a moment. Then Tom spoke again, still not feeling comfortable in the role of the strict parent.

 

“I’m only doing this because you both need to learn not to stay out all hours of the night,” he said softly. “Anything could have happened.”

 

Elyan rolled his eyes, “Come on, dad! We were only twenty minutes late.”

 

“Only?”

 

“Just be honest,” the younger man said, frustrated. “The only reason you care so much is because it was Gwen coming home late. If it had just been me, you wouldn’t have care.”

 

“Of course, I would have cared,” Tom protested, before he picked up his spoon again and shared a knowing look with Gwen, “I just wouldn’t have been surprised.”

 

He shared an amused smile with Gwen.

 

Elyan grumbled in annoyance, stood and picked up his bowl.

 

“Where’re you going?” Gwen asked.

 

Her brother replied in a low, incensed voice.

 

“I’ll finish it at work,” he told her, and turned to walk out the door.

 

Gwen and Tom watched him go before Gwen put down her spoon and rushed to go after him. She turned to her father as she unhooked her cape from the back of the door. “I should be getting to work too,” she told him.

 

“Don’t let Elyan’s mood upset you,” Tom advised her, knowing that was why she was rushing off. “He’s just going through a bad patch...”

 

The blacksmith’s daughter was not convinced and she sensed that there was something else behind Elyan’s bad humour. She imagined it had something to do with the fact that her bad timekeeping had got them grounded by their father. He seemed to think that being grounded was nothing to Gwen, who was out for irregular hours at work and never went anywhere anyway. Elyan on the other hand was trapped with their father  all day long , at work and at home.

 

Gwen caught up to Elyan just as he was unlocking the forge. The strikers would be there soon including Jack, and Gwen wanted to avoid him if she could.

 

“Look, I’m sorry,” Gwen told him.

 

He shrugged, “What for?”

 

“For getting a curfew slapped on you,” she replied. “I’m guessing that’s why you’re so annoyed at me.”

 

Elyan raised an eyebrow, “Who says I’m annoyed with you?”

 

Gwen straightened her back, a little surprised.

 

“Well, I just assumed...”

 

Her brother placed his bowl of porridge on the ground and clasped her shoulders in a patronising manner that Gwen did not appreciate. “Right, I’ll admit I was a little pissed at you for being so late,” Elyan admitted firstly. “I mean seriously, sis! What the hell were you doing?”

 

 You don’t want to know,  Gwen thought. “I’m sorry,” was what she said in the end. “I’ll... try and put it right.”

 

“How?”

 

“I’ll find you an alibi,” she replied quickly, and then paused to think about her next words. She could feel the blushes coming back but her calm reserve distracted her brother from them. “I’ll talk to Arthur...”

 

Elyan’s eyes widened, “So you were telling the truth last night?”

 

Gwen nodded.

 

“Why would he want to talk to you?”

 

“Actually,” she said. “He originally wanted to talk to you. But I told him you were busy, so we... caught up on old times.”

 

She could feel his lips caressing her neck even now.

 

“I see,” Elyan nodded, and bent down to pick up his bowl and head into the forge. “Well, if he’ll help I won’t say no.” Gwen held the door open for him as he went in. He then turned to speak to her again, “But seriously, sis. It’s not the fact you got me grounded. I just...”

 

He sighed and shook his head.

 

“Never mind,” Elyan finished with a smile. “Have a nice day at work.”

 

 

*

 

 

Arthur had finally managed to get to sleep after his early morning masturbation. While the thought of Gwen had been anything but far from his mind, releasing his tension even just a little bit had helped him trick his body into sleeping. He woke up a few times between fifth and seventh hours but had drifted in and out of consciousness each time.

 

He was only half-asleep when George came in the wake him up.

 

The servant crept about the room carefully, making his way to the windows to draw the curtains. He did this every morning. Even though he was there to wake Arthur up he always behaved as if it was a  crime  to wake him a microsecond before three minutes past eight.

 

“Don’t hold your breath, idiot,” Arthur mumbled from his pillow. “I  am  awake.”

 

George turned around, “I’m sorry, sire. Did I wake you?”

 

“Isn’t that the whole point of your being here?” the prince said tartly.

 

The servant lowered his head, “Pardon me, sire. That was a silly thing to say.”

 

“As if you could say something  sensible ,” Arthur yawned, sitting up in bed. He stared across the room to George. The man was just staring at him. He thought at first, he would now mock George’s dumbness, but something inside him made him stop.

 

He found something else to say. “Did you manage to get that drunken idiot home safe?”

 

“You mean my cousin Jack?” George asked.

 

“Was that his name?” Arthur shrugged, unmoved by George familial relationship with the man. All he could ever see Jack as was ‘that drunken idiot who wants to sleep with Guinevere’. The throbbing in his loins and temples cried hypocrite, and Arthur knew it. He rubbed his temples and closed his eyes, “I hope he didn’t cause you too much trouble.”

 

A small smile crept across George’s face. “No, sire.”

 

Arthur nodded.

 

A long silence past between them before the prince decided he’d had enough.

 

“Don’t just stand there,” he said firmly. “Fetch my clothes.”

 

George snapped out of his daze and rushed to the wardrobe, “Yes, sire. Sorry, sire!”

 

 

*

 

 

Gwen had carried out her duties for her mistress diligently.

 

She woke her up, dressed her, brushed her hair, brought her breakfast, made the bed, delivered a few notes to some of the ladies of the court – including Lady Freda, Sir Ector’s wife – and generally any odd little bit of work she could find to distract her with. Although Morgana had noticed that Gwen wasn’t very talkative, she did not complain about her little maid’s efficiency.

 

“Is there anything else I can do, my lady?” was the sentence of the day.

 

Morgana was starting to get curious, “Why are you do keen to work today, Gwen?”

 

“I enjoy working,” the young maid replied. “It keeps me busy.”

 

“You don’t want to take a breather?”

 

“I haven’t the time, my lady,” Gwen replied, and then explained that her father wished for her to be home by a certain time and she didn’t want any work from today to pile up tomorrow. “So, you understand why I am looking for any bit of work I can?”

 

Morgana nodded, sensing there was something else to it although she said nothing. “I can understand,” she told her slowly. She then pointed to her basket of washing. “I was going to ask you to do that tomorrow and clean the floors today, but I think the floors will take a while, won’t they?”

 

“Most certainly, my lady,” Gwen nodded.

 

“So, you take that lot down now,” Morgana ordered, still pointing to the basket. “I’ll tell you any other small things I can think of for the rest of the day, and the floors can wait until tomorrow.”

 

Gwen curtsied politely.

 

She turned to leave.

 

Morgana called after her, “So your father had grounded you? I have to say I am very surprised.”

 

Gwen faced her again, “Oh?”

 

“Well,” the lady said with a shrug of the shoulders. “You seem like the model daughter. You don’t only look after me but two useless men who might be good blacksmiths but are rubbish at domestic chores. It just surprises me that you did something to warrant being grounded.”

 

She leaned forward.

 

“So, what did you do?”

 

Gwen swallowed. “I... stayed out too late. Twenty minutes after midnight.”

 

“Doing what?” Morgana said with surprised. Then she had a thought and grinning teasingly, “Seeing a boy?”

 

Gwen could feel her cheeks fire up all over again. She couldn’t possibly admit to Morgana that she  had  been with a boy, let alone that that boy was Arthur. Quickly, she found something to excuse her leaving immediately. She grabbed the laundry basket and hurried towards the door.

 

“I’ll take these straight away to be washed,” Gwen declared.

 

As she vacated the room, Morgana sat with a look of self-satisfaction at having discovered that her maid had a love life. On the one had she was very surprised as Gwen was very modest and had never expressed an interest in of the serving boys until this moment. The lady knew her maid was not so loose that this boy had only just negotiated his way into her underskirt but knew that it was common practise amongst girls of Guinevere’s class to be ‘broken in’ by the local ‘Dristans’, as Morgana liked to call them.

 

 How interesting it would be to live one day as a servant and not have to worry about honour and chastity,  Morgana thought to herself.

 

So, if Gwen’s head hadn’t been turned by a fellow servant then it had to be someone in the town, someone who didn’t work in the palace and Morgana didn’t know... although she was giving herself a bit too much credit there. Morgana only knew the servants who were allowed at court, which were the royal servants.

 

Her new beau wasn’t George, then. Pity, because Morgana had long since suspected that George had a crush on Gwen. Looks like some more active and energetic man had beaten him to her.  Maybe it’s that elder cousin of hers? What was his name? Jake or Jack or John or something?  He did work in Tom’s forge as a striker. Elyan was bound to  hate  that...

 

If it wasn’t a servant or a boy from town then Morgana didn’t have a clue who else it could be...

 

Unless it was a girl.

 

No, that’s silly.

 

She had only ever seen Gwen stare after boys, never girls. Had she liked girls then Lady Freda would have cottoned on to her by now. Too many times had Morgana seen Gwen doing as all serving girls seemed to; stare dreamily at the knights as they were practising, hoping one of them would take their shirts off. Gwen usually took a long time beating the dust out of rugs when Arthur was training the men.

 

Although she  could  have been staring at George...?

 

No, who on earth would stare at George?

 

George stared at Gwen, sometimes.

 

Gwen stared straight ahead.

 

Morgana just hoped it wasn’t a knight taking advantage of her. Gwen’s embarrassment might derive from the fact that her lady  knew  the man with whom she had been with.  Oh God,  Morgana thought with a feeling of disgust.  Not Sir Cai! If Gwen has allowed Cai to lay a finger on her, there goes any respect I ever had for her!

 

She shivered.

 

 Although,  her train of thought continued.  At least Cai would know what he is doing...

 

 

*

 

 

It was probably a type of manic madness that was driving Arthur, but he decided after lunch that he  had  to talk to Gwen about the other night.

 

Even after yet another quick morning wank while George was out of the room and he had ten minutes to himself, he still couldn’t settle his thoughts. Every time he thought of her soft body pressed up against him, it made his whole body crave to relive that moment again. Yet he didn’t want to talk to her about that: he wanted to apologise.

 

It had undoubtedly been a two-party thing; Gwen had very willingly thrown herself onto Arthur’s bed, parted her legs and beckoned him to climb between them. It wasn’t that he felt he had forced her into anything (Not that anything had already happened) but that he feared, having the night and the morning to reflect on what happened herself, Gwen might feel that Arthur had not showed her enough respect.

 

The thought of Gwen thinking Arthur didn’t respect her troubled him more than his overacting lust pains did.

 

Guiltily, he felt even more cautious of it because she was a servant. Yes, they were old friends. Yes, she had seemed very willing to ‘offer’ herself to him, and  yes , she had implemented their first kiss. (A bubbling feeling curled inside Arthur’s stomach as he thought about how that  had  been their first kiss.)

 

But there was still that social barrier.

 

Gwen’s words last night haunted him a little:  “You could have anyone you wanted.”

 

She didn’t know how wrong she was. Arthur could not have anyone he wanted, not really. Yes, if he took a fancy to a girl she couldn’t really say no but that wasn’t what he  wanted . He knew that most women only paid him heed because he was the prince and future king. Certainly, his good-looks helped too and Arthur wasn’t so self-conscious that he would even pretend that he wasn’t attractive to both the opposite – and in some awkward cases  the same  – sex, but it was still mainly his title that dominated women’s view of him.

 

Arthur wanted to be wanted for himself; and least of all he didn’t want Gwen if the only reason she played up to him was because he was a prince rather than an old friend.

 

He finally caught sight of her coming out of the laundry room.

 

Although his heart was caught in his throat, he wasted no time in catching her attention: “Guinevere!”

 

Gwen turned and felt her own heart leap up from her rib-cage. It almost felt as if was caught in her house as it started to pulse with the memory of Arthur’s kisses again. After a whole morning of preparing for this moment, she still didn’t feel ready.

 

She managed a natural smile nonetheless (As she was genuinely pleased to see him aside from all the nervousness she felt), and approached him subtly, not letting her body language reveal to anyone who might see that she knew what it was like to have all that masculinity pressed up against her.

 

She felt another tug below.

 

She swallowed.

 

“My lord,” Gwen said politely.

 

Arthur sighed, “I wish you would stop calling me that, given the circumstances.”

 

Gwen bit her lip awkwardly. “I feel the need to address you as befitting your station,” she explained to him formally, eyeing the public corridor around them. Indeed, another servant walked past them at that moment. He paid no heed to either of them but is presence proved Gwen’s point. She smiled, “Considering we aren’t in private.”

 

The prince nodded in defeat.

 

“In that case I will make this brief,” he said with equal formality, waiting until the other servant was gone before he said any more. “I wanted to apologise to you.”

 

Gwen didn’t know how to react. She felt a little stunned that of all the things he could have said to her after last night, he said  that .

 

She chuckled delicately, “What would you need to apologise for?”

 

Arthur told simply told her what had been on his mind.

 

“Last night,” he said softly. “I... feel I should have treated you with more respect.”

 

Gwen felt bitterly humbled. She knew he hadn’t meant it how it sounded but her reaction was the same nonetheless. Last night had been so new and titillating for her that it was all she had been able to think about. Now, for Arthur to have come up to her and apologise for what he clearly felt was ‘taking advantage’ of her made her feel inferior, like she couldn’t possibly have made her own choice in the matter.

 

 How dare he?  she thought to herself,  I’m the one who kissed him!

 

And she had been worried that he would think she was too easy...

 

Unable to stop herself, Gwen pulled a sulky expression that took Arthur by surprise.

 

“At what point did you think you  did not  show me respect?” Gwen asked complicatedly, folding her arms as spoke. “Was it when you forgot I am a servant or that I am your friend?”

 

Arthur blinked in confusion.

 

“Have I offended you?” he asked.

 

Gwen petulantly looked away from him. “Not until you suggested that you lacked respect for me last night,” she admitted, after a three-second-long stony silence. “Until five minutes ago I thought what happened was... a natural progression of something that... has been between us for... sometime.”

 

Now Arthur was the one feeling humbled.

 

“But now,” Gwen went one. “I’m wondering if... maybe the only reason you did what you did is because... you’d never done it before and I just happened to be there.”

 

A frantic shock went through Arthur. Never had his foot felt more lodged in his mouth.

 

“And God knows,” Gwen concluded in a piteous tone, shifting her gaze towards the chequered floor to avoid looking Arthur. Had she looked up, she would have seen an equally plaintive look in his eyes. “Servant girls like me are the most biddable and beddable of women, aren’t we?”

 

Arthur swallowed hard. His tone was defensive yet stern.

 

“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings,” he began slowly. “I was merely concerned that the fact that our first kiss had nearly led so quickly to our first time, might have falsely led you to believe that I was taking advantage of you because—”

 

He heard another servant approaching. Without flinching, he took her by the forearm and led her into a nearby deep alcove so they couldn’t be seen.

 

He continued quietly, lightly mocking her previous tone: “—because, God knows, princes like me are supposed to have whoever we want, aren’t we?”

 

Gwen felt sick with shame. She had taken Arthur’s innocent statement too much to heart that she had allowed it to scold her pride, pride which had not felt in the least bit damaged after last night. In fact, apart from the craving for sexual gratification, she had never felt more attractive than when Arthur was lying on top of her and pressing his willingness to make love to her into her stomach...

 

She closed her eyes and looked away.

 

“I just got so lost in what was happening last night that I didn’t even stop to think how fast we were moving things,” Arthur went on. “That’s why I was worried I didn’t show enough respect for you.”

 

She opened her eyes again and looked at him hazily.

 

“You and I have been friends for so long,” he said with a nostalgic sigh. “Yet recently I have felt this tension between us and... last night—”

 

“I’m sorry,” Gwen spoke suddenly.

 

He stopped and looked at her.

 

“I overreached,” she explained guiltily. “I suppose I was so frightened of what you would say when we next saw each other that I hoped for the best but expected the worst. Then you started with an apology, and I sort of...”

 

Gwen’s words trailed off.

 

Arthur leaned closer to her, “Tell me.”

 

She took a deep breath, “I sort of died a little inside.”

 

This revelation had a profound effect on Arthur. It was a relief to hear that she wasn’t offended by his simple question of respect but had simply misunderstood him but that wasn’t the thing that struck him the worst. It was the fact that she had clearly feared that his words to her had been a rejection of what had passed between them. It was even more significant because the moment she told him how his words had made her feel, relieved the crushing blow he had felt by her reaction to them.

 

It made him think, hopefully, that she had been going through the same lusty torment he had over the last few months. He has suspected she had... but this was a secret confirmation.

 

“And for what it’s worth,” Gwen added. “I never once felt you were disrespecting me. I just felt... right. There isn’t one thing about what happened that I feel sorry for.”

 

Arthur managed to smile, “I’m glad.”

 

“In fact,” she confessed with a small smile. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it...”

 

He could feel his lips starting to prickle. Her eyes had set themselves on his mouth and he wondered whether she was thinking about kissing him as much as he was about kissing her.

 

Unfortunately, Gwen broke the trace by stepping away.

 

She was clearly forcing herself but Arthur felt the prickling die away on his smile like silk.

 

“I should go,” Gwen said softly. “I’ve offended you enough...”

 

Arthur wanted to reach out and grab her hand but for some reason his body wouldn’t ease up enough to allow his arm to outstretch for her.

 

“You haven’t offended me,” he said.

 

Gwen forced a smile, “Nonetheless, I feel awful about my behaviour. I can’t even bring myself to ask you my favour now. Elyan probably deserves to be grounded anyway...”

 

Arthur had still been so enraptured by the thought that last night had affected Gwen the same way it had him that he only just took in the tail end of what she was saying. He blinked, “Sorry, Elyan is grounded?”

 

“So am I. It was punishment for being twenty minutes late last night.”

 

Arthur tried not to laugh, “It took you twenty minutes to get home.”

 

Gwen coyly shrugged her shoulders.

 

“I couldn’t help it,” she said with a kittenish smile. “It took me a little while to... settle down from what happened.”

 

Her words made Arthur’s body ache.

 

She went on: “I had hoped that you might tell my father that you were speaking to Elyan last night, even though you weren’t, and thus get him off the hook.”

 

Arthur tilted his head and smiled flirtatiously: “Are you asking me to fib to your father for you?”

 

Gwen slowly started to walk away. Very slowly.

 

“It was cheeky,” she confessed. “I was doing it more for Elyan than anyone else.”

 

Arthur’s expression shifted into a more innocent, friendly tone.

 

“I’ll see what I can do.”

 

 

*

 

 

Arthur returned to the castle late that evening in triumph. He had successfully managed to convince Gwen and Elyan’s father that they had been with him last night and that he was responsible for them being late. Of course, no one was going to ignore the word of a prince even if they were doubtful of the validity of what he said.

 

It was clear that Tom hadn’t known what to even think when the prince turned up at his forge. The last time he had done that was when he was a little boy and he had learned how swords were made. After that the only time he really saw Arthur was if he and Dagonet were passing by, and after Dagonet retired, when him and Cai were passing at the prince caught the eye of the father of his two childhood friends.

 

Seeing Arthur stand there and address him by name was surprising.

 

It was odd but Arthur didn’t quite know  how  to address Tom. Nothing seemed right. Yet he knew he would have to be the first to speak, as was custom to any commoner speaking to a royal, and so he simply nodded awkwardly and addressed both Tom and Elyan.

 

“I have come here to apologise to you,” Arthur said after the clumsy introduction.

 

Tom tried to continue with his work to cover his discomfort, “For what, my lord?”

 

Arthur glanced at Elyan, who seemed genuinely surprised too – surprised that his sister had managed to keep her word and match their father to his. Nothing less than the prince himself, Tom has said.

 

“For keeping your son and daughter last night,” the prince explained, and then caught sight of his new arch-rival Jack. He too had stopped work, trying to remember last night himself. “After my servant assisted one of your strikers’ home after he had drunk too much,” Arthur explained, looking at Jack so Tom would look too, “I ended up conversing with Gwen and Elyan for a very long time. I wished to engage them on something and completely lost track of time.”

 

He offered a princely smile.

 

“Again, I apologise,” Arthur concluded gracefully.

 

It was a well-received performance and Tom said that if the prince saw Gwen to tell her that she may work if she needed to tonight.

 

“I’ll make sure she knows,” Arthur assured the blacksmith.

 

Tom then spoke out again: “Although I am curious...”

 

A cold feeling lay on Arthur’s chest and he turned to face the blacksmith again.

 

“...as to what you were doing?” Tom finished.

 

 Lying on top of your daughter,  Arthur thought. “What we were doing?” Arthur repeated.

 

Tom nodded, “I mean... it was probably something very mundane but I’m curious...”

 

 You don’t want to know,  the prince thought again and looked to Elyan. He could feel his blushes but the orange light of the hearth shaded his skin. Arthur smiled, “I had wanted to discuss something with them. Various topics were addressed, nothing to concern you with of course, just idle chatter...”

 

 Feeling the inside of Gwen’s mouth with my tongue,  Arthur’s brain went on.  It was a <b>very</b> productive night, sir!

 

“Obviously, details about Gwen’s work came up,” he went on, trying to think of a worthy topic. But his imagination wouldn’t let him. He just kept think of Gwen and his innate desire to feel under her skirts. “She is the servant to my foster sister after all...”

 

 The only thing that could have made the night more productive,  Arthur’s thoughts went, completely a separate entity to his mouth now... thank goodness,  is if I’d been able to slip my tongue inside her...

 

Arthur cleared his throat.

 

“Apologies,” he suddenly said, smiling inanely. “My mind keeps wandering...”  To your daughter...  “To matters of state.”  I wish!

 

Tom bobbed his head; a little perplexed at the young prince’s puzzling behaviour. He didn’t know him well enough to tell that he was lying. Had it been Gwen talking to him right now, he would have been certain of it as Arthur’s face matched Gwen’s lying face perfectly. But for all he knew the prince’s mind really was on matters of state.

 

“You don’t need to explain,” the blacksmith said kindly. “I’m sure you had your reasons to...” he stopped, unable to think how to explain it, “...seek their council.”

 

Arthur knew how maladroit he was being. He was praying the whole time that his brain would not betray his real thoughts, which  even now  were stuck on the knowledge of what the blacksmith’s sweet little daughter had got up to with him.

 

“Your daughter in particular,” Arthur found himself saying, guarding his words as if they were a sacred treasure, “is very wise.”

 

Tom smiled proudly, “She has always been a sensible girl, always been moral...”

 

“Hm?” Arthur agreed with irony.

 

Realising the conversation had run its course (and that he was evidently harder for the prince to talk to then Gwen – or indeed Elyan – apparently were) Tom turned to his son and said, “You’re off the hook.”

 

“Thanks, dad,” Elyan muttered, and he smiled at Arthur. “Thank you too, sire.”

 

“Well,” Arthur replied modestly, “I felt bad about it...”

 

That wasn’t true. He wouldn’t have missed a  single second  of kissing Gwen. Still, it was partly his fault that Gwen was late; partly his fault, and partly her fault for being  so insatiable ...

 

“And when Gwen mentioned her curfew I felt I had best take the blame,” Arthur explained once more to Tom.

 

The blacksmith shook his head, “It is fine your highness. You have already gone out of your way by coming here to explain it yourself.”

 

Arthur nodded.

 

“I will leave you to your work,” he said humbly.

 

He then finally made his way out but not before making a fool of that idiot Jack again. He told the striker that he should watch his drink in future. “And try to think better of  your  actions,” Arthur advised him. “You wouldn’t want to humiliate yourself in front of your employer’s daughter again by throwing yourself at her and then having her reject you all over again...”

 

Jack didn’t know what to say.

 

Arthur gave him a painful slap on the back and walked out. He would have liked to ‘twist his arm’ as he had done with Cai, but he didn’t want to be so blatant in front of Tom and Elyan. So, he left it at that.

 

The sun was starting to go down by the time he reached the palace again and instead of going straight to his chambers to prepare for dinner with his family he searched about the corridors for Gwen to tell her his mission was successful. He didn’t know why it excited him so much. It was as if he felt inside there and then that tonight would be more important than he realised...

 

He finally found her approaching Morgana’s chambers with a basket of laundry.

 

He called out cheerfully to her: “Guinevere!”

 

Gwen turned around. That was the second time today he had shot her through the heart just by uttering her name. Then when she saw how cheerful he seemed, she felt better after that had happened earlier that day. She was still reprimanding herself for acting so foolishly in front of him.

 

“Arthur,” she said politely.

 

Arthur’s smile widened: she had said his name!

 

“Can I talk to you?” he asked.

 

She nodded, “Of course!”

 

They retreated into an alcove to get out of the way of anyone who might come charging down the corridor. Thankfully for them the corridor was deserted as everyone was in the kitchen try not the be killed by cook while dinner was being prepared for twenty different noble families by twenty different sets of servants including the king’s.

 

Once they were within the safe dim darkness of the nook, Arthur relayed his news.

 

“Your father wanted me to let you know that you can work as long as you need to tonight,” he informed her. “Your curfew if lifted.”

 

The corners of Gwen’s face twitched into a smile: “How very kind of him! Now I have no excuse to stop work at half past eleven.”

 

“I know,” Arthur said teasingly, leaning against a wall suavely. “But if you don’t tell Morgana that your curfew is lifted...”

 

“Ah,” Gwen chuckled, “What a devious suggestion!”

 

“I know,” Arthur went on, play-acting a lamentable sigh. “There is no end to my scandalous desire to corrupt the innocence of the virtuous blacksmith’s daughter.”

 

They both leant their backs against the wall and laughed at each other’s playful teasing. It has not gone over Gwen’s head how Arthur’s words were about last night as well as now. She cleared her throat, still feeling that she should say something about it.

 

“I hope you are not angry with me for earlier,” she began slowly.

 

Arthur was still chuckling, “I was never angry with you.”

 

“I’m still sorry for getting the wrong end of the stick.”

 

“Forget it, it’s done and dusted.”

 

Gwen leaned her head against the cool stone of the wall and sighed. Arthur looked down at her and she looked up with a grateful smile, “Thank you for doing that... for Elyan.”

 

Arthur tilted his head and gave her a rueful half-smile.

 

“No need to thank me,” he told her. “I’m not going to lie: I only did it because you asked me to.”

 

Gwen felt her heart flutter painfully.

 

“You didn’t have to go there in person to do it,” she said. “You could have just written a letter; my father would have still accepted.”

 

“I rather wish I had,” Arthur also admitted. “I found it hard to look your father in the eye because when I did, I kept thinking of you.”

 

Gwen chuckled at the accidental implication of his words and it was not lost to Arthur’s quick wits either. “And what I meant was,” he felt the need to explain, “I felt... self-conscious. Like I was worried he could read my mind.”

 

“If he could I think he’d be more embarrassed than you,” Gwen assured him.

 

“That’s assuring to know,” Arthur said jeeringly. “Would that be before or after he comes at me with his stake?”

 

The young woman burst into a fit of giggles made even more titillating by the devil-may-care expression Arthur had on his face. “My father has never had a violent thought in his life,” Gwen told him confidently. “The worst he would do is set Elyan on you.”

 

Arthur leaned closer Gwen. Her entire body tensed as he spoke low and huskily: “I had better watch my back, then. God knows your brother has a protective nature.”

 

Gwen wet her lips and slowly glazed up into Arthur’s eyes. The natural heat of his body was starting to make her feel hazy and it was only then she realised just how close he was standing to her. She smiled softly, “I’m betting you could take him.”

 

“Oh, I could take him,” Arthur agreed huskily. “I just don’t want to destroy the innocence of  both  the blacksmith’s children.”

 

Gwen glanced dreamily at his mouth.

 

“I’m not as innocent as you think,” she whispered.

 

Arthur leaned his face ever closer to hers. The smile on his face was so absorbing that Gwen could feel every bone in her body start to buckle and vein in her body start to groan. She knew what was coming and she wanted him to hurry up and get on with it. Arthur could see the anticipation in her eyes and he felt triumphant.

 

“Oh,” he beamed, “I don’t think you’re innocent.”

 

He kissed her firmly on the lips. Gwen closed her eyes to let the feeling wash over her. All day she had kept thinking of that moment when she had kissed him, wanted to relive it, and now that she was reliving it she intended to appreciate it for all it was worth.

 

He pulled away suddenly.

 

She stumbled forwards; it had ended so quickly.

 

She couldn’t hold back a pout.

 

“Are you teasing me?” Gwen asked straight.

 

Arthur chuckled, “Not in a bad way.”

 

He went to kiss her again; Gwen placed a hand on his chest, keeping distance between them.

 

“Because I don’t want to be messed around,” she told him firmly.

 

Arthur stopped and looked at her, intriguingly.

 

She bit her lip. “I don’t respond well to being teased by boys.”

 

The prince sighed, lifted her chin to look at him and grinned.

 

“You never did,” he said nostalgically.

 

He was glad he had never felt compelled to tease her while nursing his childish crush on her when they used to play together. She could have taken it too much to heart if he had. Gwen had a strong personality but she hated mixed signals.

 

“You’re my friend,” Arthur promise, moving his mouth closer to hers, and whispered to her: “I would never,  ever  mess you around...”

 

He pressed her against the wall and recaptured her lips. Gwen melted under his touch immediately. This time she made sure to keep him locked to her by slipping her tongue softly into his mouth. Arthur groaned quietly against her lips, tilted his head and literally added a new angle to their kiss that made Gwen groan too.

 

She broke the kiss this time. “I thought about this all day.”

 

He smirked, “Me too.”

 

They resumed hungrily and passionately, letting all the memories they had felt after last night explode in this one moment between them. Very quickly Arthur could feel himself getting aroused again. Similarly, Gwen was starting to feel her nether regions start to tingle again.

 

She broke the kiss with Arthur’s lips, suddenly realising that she couldn’t take the frustration of not being able to get off again. She just couldn’t!

 

It had been bothering her for  ages  after she left him last night.

 

But Arthur, not knowing this starting kissing Gwen’s neck instead. She tasted how she smelt; fresh and sweet at the same time. He could have smothered his while face into her clothes and skin and happily stay there for an eternity.

 

The caresses of Arthur’s mouth and the feeling of his body pressing ever harder against her was swiftly becoming too much for Gwen.

 

“Stop...” she whimpered weakly.

 

It was so quiet Arthur didn’t hear her. It was just as well as in this moment Arthur decided to try something that he had overheard Cai boasting about to a frankly petrified Leon the other day.

 

He gently pushed his knee in between Gwen’s legs.

 

The friction of Arthur’s leg against the cloth of Gwen’s thin underwear was  exactly/i> what she had needed.

 

Gwen moaned distinctly.

 

Arthur pulled his lips away from her neck to look at her. “Is that good or bad?”

 

Her breath was quivering.

 

“Do it again,” she ordered. Arthur obeyed her, rubbing his knee as carefully as possible against her. She gasped again, and demanded, “Again...” and after that,  “Again!”  Gwen groaned frantically each time, her ‘Agains’ becoming weaker and weaker until Arthur responded before she could even utter a syllable. He worked his thigh against the little numb he could feel growing firm. He realised this was the spot that seemed to give Gwen the most pleasure.

 

“Arthur...” she said breathlessly.

 

She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against him. Her tiny little cries scolded his shoulder.

 

There was a hot feeling in the pit of Arthur’s stomach; it wasn’t just mutual desire but satisfaction. Arthur felt he was seeing Gwen in one of her most intimate moments; he was  giving her  one of her most intimate moments and he loved it.

 

She came with a sweet, warm and relieved mew of delight.

 

She let him know that her satisfaction had come by softly leaning forward to kiss his lips. “How did you know how to do that?”

 

Arthur shrugged, “Grapevine.”

 

“You mean you heard Cai talking about it?” Gwen breathed.

 

“Yep,” he said gruffly unable to contain an awkward smile. “That’s my new nickname for him. ‘Grapevine.’”

 

Gwen chuckled again.

 

“That was better than any time I have ever done it,” she confessed readily.

 

He briefly kissed her again.

 

She bit her lips again and glanced down at him.

 

“You look as if you need—”

 

Arthur felt his body tense up.

 

Gwen began to slip her hands down his body. “Do you want me to...?”

 

Before her hands had ever reached his abdomen they both heard an annoying voice ring out from down the corridor.

 

“Gwen?” Morgana called questioningly.

 

Arthur yanked his leg away from between Gwen’s thighs and stepped away from her. His stepping was clearly hindered by his own tenderness. He licked his lips reluctantly. In that moment Arthur would have done anything to simply have her...

 

“Gwen?!” came the voice again.

 

 Morgana is clearly wondering where her <b>stupid</b> washing is,  Arthur thought spitefully to himself.

 

He swallowed the thick lump that had developed in his throat and watched Gwen doing her best to recover from her orgasm. She had wanted to get off somewhere, somehow for so long that finally getting it was pure bliss.

 

“You should go,” he told her. “We don’t want her finding us...”

 

Gwen pulled herself together.

 

“Of course,” she said, her tone suddenly changing back to that of the ordinary serving girl. She picked up the bag of Morgana’s washing. “Will you be... alright?”

 

Arthur wanted her to stay. He wanted to kiss her some more. He wanted her to touch him.  He wanted to know what it was like to be inside her...  But he knew he had to let her go. Now wasn’t the right time...

 

He backed against the wall.

 

“I’ll be fine, Guinevere,” and he even forced himself to smile. “I suppose I will see you later?”

 

Gwen smiled too, not quite knowing how to react now. It hadn’t fully sunk in yet that she had just masturbated with Arthur’s leg. She was still on something of an emotional high at finally being gratified and the potential embarrassment she would feel later felt a world away right now.

 

“I will be serving the wine at dinner,” she finally replied, backing out of the alcove. “So yes, you will see me later...”

 

Arthur watched her go. He laid his head sadly against the cold stone wall and sighed in frustration. Once his body had settled down mostly but not completely, he headed back towards his chambers to prepare for the said dinner. He had quite forgotten that rather than sitting around in his room being fed something unthinkable by hapless George he was having dinner with his father, Morgana, Sir Ector and...  ouch  Cai and Lady Freda.

 

 How could I have forgotten that was tonight?  he wondered in frustration. He had been meaning to prepare for it  all  week. He could usually handle the likes of Uther, Morgana, Cai and Lady Freda individually but together they formed a quartet of cruelty that was due to attack Arthur on every front imaginable.

 

And he didn’t even have time or privacy to masturbate before dinner.

 

He could already feel a begrudging hate towards Morgana for  stealing  Gwen from him just when he needed her the most.

 

Arthur burst into his chambers like an oncoming storm, scaring the life out of George who was laying out his master’s clothes for that evening. The servant knew that if Arthur was in a bad mood that usually meant extra needless and unprovoked abuse.

 

He immediately tried to get on Arthur’s good side.

 

“I put a change of shirt out for you, sire!” George said frantically.

 

Arthur gave him such an icy look that he could turn flesh to stone.

 

“What do you want?” the prince asked sarcastically, “A round of applause.”

 

He snatched the shirt up.

 

“No, sire,” George said sheepishly.

 

Arthur walked behind his screen to slip his day shirt to put on an evening one. He dared not change his trousers just yet and still be confronted with what little remained of his desire for Gwen. He had managed to get it down but the aggravation and feeling of denial was still there. No matter what they did or how far they got with each other, they would never find time to see it through to what he  knew  now to be their goal; to sleep together.

 

It seemed odd to finally to that was what he wanted.  He wanted to make love to her.  He had known already deep down but hadn’t found it in his heart to admit it, mainly because he hadn’t known whether she wanted it too.

 

But after tonight Arthur felt more confident.

 

She had let him get her off.

 

That had to mean she wanted it too?

 

Arthur pulled his fresh shirt over his head. A thought suddenly came to him: he would never be able to get Gwen alone unless he specifically asked her to meet him out of her work hours.

 

She couldn’t ask  him , after all.

 

It  had  to be him who made the move.

 

He had to try. It seemed silly not to. Just twenty minutes ago he had got he off with his knee in her crotch. Neither of them had been prudish about it...

 

He emerged from behind his screen.

 

“You look quite fine, sire,” George said.

 

Arthur smiled synthetically, “No one likes a boot-licker, George.”

 

“Sorry, sire—”

 

“George, what time does Gwen usually finish work?” the prince asked suddenly.

 

George felt his cheeks blush; he didn’t really want to prince to know that he kept a timetable of when and where Gwen usually was each day of the week so he could accidently on-purpose run into her and... be routinely too shy to approach her.

 

He hated his cousin Jack for being so  forward  with his feelings. George wished he was that confident...

 

Ironically, Arthur was about the only person in the castle who didn’t know about George’s infatuation with Gwen. It was just as well too as needless cruelty would certainly follow if the prince found out.

 

George shrugged, “About... eleventh, maybe? It depends when Lady Morgana retires for the night.”

 

Arthur smirked as an idea came to him.

 

“George,” Arthur said. “You are on duty at dinner with Gwen, aren’t you?”

 

“Yes, sire...?”

 

“Make sure that Morgana’s cup is  always  filled,” the prince ordered his manservant. “Don’t let it even get half-empty.”

 

George blinked, “But what if she says she doesn’t want anymore?”

 

“Don’t worry about that,” Arthur informed him. “Just do as I say and I’ll let you go home straight after tonight  and  let you come in late tomorrow.”

 

George rolled a little back and forth on his feet, “After ten?”

 

Arthur widened his eyes, smiled and slapped him painfully on the back.

 

“Deal,” the prince said, heading over to his writing desk. “Now, go away. I need to do something before I head down to dinner...”

 

 

*

 

 

Half an hour later the king’s family and Sir Ector’s family gathered in the dining room.

 

Ector sat to Uther’s right; Morgana settled herself beside the glamorous Lady Freda who, as always, made it her business to be the most stunning woman at the table (Not that Morgana felt too threatened; mainly vulnerable although Freda’s pray were usually her maids not the ladies at court); and Arthur sat down next to Cai. He seemed less reluctant than usual to do so, mainly because his mind was very much on other things.

 

Cai seemed to notice immediately.

 

“Penny for your thoughts, sire?”

 

Arthur glanced at him side-ways, “Do you really think I’d just announce it at the dinner table?”

 

“If it was interesting enough,” Cai joked.

 

“Well, it’s not,” the prince replied.

 

Cai pulled a face, “Alright then, don’t tell me.”

 

Once the food was on the table, George and Gwen came forward to fill up the goblets of wine. Cai grinned at the sight of Gwen, noticing his protégée’s eyes shift to her immediately. He leaned over and whispered: “Got anywhere with her yet?”

 

“Shut up, Cai,” Arthur warned him sternly, “Unless you  want  me to break your arm.”

 

Cai smirked.

 

Gwen poured out some wine for the king, who ignored her; for Sir Ector, who thanked her indifferently; and then Lady Freda, who fluttered her eyes at the young girl. “Thank you, sweetheart,” she said lusciously.

 

The maid smiled politely; she understood why some of the maids who were that way inclined were so willing service Lady Freda. She was notorious but she thought highly of all ‘her girls’. Moreover, she was a very attractive for a woman in her late forties and had no signs of greying on her fine blonde head.

 

Morgana reflected on this herself: “I don’t know how you do it, Freda. You look so wonderful all the time.”

 

“Please, Morgana,” Freda said modestly. “I don’t need to be buttered up. I know how well I look for my age. I don’t need to be reminded. Moreover, there are no ugly women in sight for me to flaunt it to,” and she glanced over at Gwen again, “Just three pretty faces...”

 

Morgana was admittedly confused when she said ‘three’ and realised she was counting Gwen too. She didn’t think of her not because she didn’t think Gwen was pretty, because she was, but because she was serving the table rather than sitting at it and therefore wouldn’t usually count.

 

Gwen glanced over her shoulder at Arthur briefly.

 

She caught him looking at her.

 

They both looked slowly away.

 

Cai addressed the prince again: “I can feel the tension oozing off your body.”

 

George poured Morgana out a drink; he was so busy looking to his master for reassurance that he was doing what he wanted that he nearly overfilled it. Morgana quickly moved it out of the way.

 

“Careful, George!” she cried. “You’ll get it on my dress!”

 

Arthur rolled his eyes.  Idiot.

 

Gwen came over to pour out Arthur and Cai’s drinks. The whole time Arthur looked at her through the corner of his eyes; and saw that she was blushing and trying not to smile.

 

Cai made an amused noise.

 

Arthur’s attention snapped to him. “ Shut up , Cai!”

 

Lady Freda tilted her head, “What are you tormenting our young prince about now?”

 

Cai looked across the table to his mother.

 

“Nothing important, mother,” the knight assured her.

 

Morgana rolled her eyes. “Please don’t feel the need to reframe from making a fool out of him,” she snarked. “It’s always good for a laugh.”

 

Arthur glared at her.

 

Cai’s response was golden: “I know I have a reputation for being a rogue but that doesn’t mean I am prepared to make snark comments for the entertainment of others; I only ever do it for my own kicks.”

 

Arthur had to look away to avoid gloating.

 

Lady Freda shook her head and was the first to take a sip from her soup. “Ignore him, my dear,” she muttered to Morgana. “He cannot go five minutes without causing offence to someone, even when trying to be polite.”

 

“Indeed,” Sir Ector nodded. He hadn’t been listening. He just tended to agree with whatever critique someone made about his son. He and Uther quickly changed to their own business: “Sire, I was hoping to talk to you about the levies...”

 

Eventually everyone began talking amongst themselves. Just as Arthur suspected, sitting next to Freda was causing Morgana to swig the wine as if it was water. She wasn’t a happy drunk or a violent drunk but a  sleepy  drunk. A combination of that and her sleeping draught would knock her out good and early.

 

Uther and Ector spoke of matters of state, now and then inviting Arthur to throw in a word or two. Although the prince knew he should have more to say, his mind was very much on other things.

 

He clutched a small folded up message in his hand.

 

He had to find a way to get it to Gwen.

 

Unable to think of anything else he could do, he accidently on-purpose tipped his goblet over when Gwen was standing on his side of the table and George was safely on the other side refilling Morgana again. Already she was starting to look tired.

 

The goblet fell.

 

All conversation stopped briefly.

 

“Moron,” Morgana muttered to Freda.

 

“For goodness sake, Arthur,” Uther scolded.

 

“Sorry, father,” Arthur said ruefully.

 

Just as he wanted, Gwen rushed over to clear up the mess.

 

His and Gwen’s eyes met as she used the cloth to clear up the wine. Using his dinner dish to mask it from Cai to his left and Morgana and Freda in front of him, Arthur placed the note on the table near Gwen’s hand. He kept eye contact with her until she noticed it, and then looked away.

 

“I don’t know what came over me,” he said in an exaggerated manner, making his excuse look flimsy and letting Gwen know it had all been a clever rouse to get her attention.

 

She took the note and walked to the other end of the room.

 

“It’s remarkable that someone so dexterous with a sword can be such a clumsy oaf,” Morgana slurred.

 

Arthur lowered his eyes unkindly at her and smiled nastily. “It’s very hard to take your petty insults to heart when you’re drunk.”

 

Morgana scoffed.

 

“I am not drunk,” she snarled.

 

Lady Freda motioned George over to refill them both.

 

“Don’t listen to him, my dear,” the older woman said. “Men are bigoted. They think it is fine when they enjoy themselves with a little wine but when  we  do it, heaven forbid!”

 

“Amen!” Morgana said.

 

Arthur glanced over at Gwen again.

 

She read the note.

 

  I must see you. Come to my chambers as soon as Morgana is asleep. Give me a sign if you’ll come.

 

Gwen felt like her heart might explode. She felt the warmth from earlier take hold between her legs as the significance of this note dawned on her. He wanted to meet with her and she knew what would happen when they did meet.

 

George lurked behind her.

 

“Are you alright?” he asked nervously.

 

Gwen quickly shoved the note into her pocket and turned to look at him. “Yes. I’m fine.”

 

She refilled Arthur’s goblet with wine.

 

George reached for it, “I’ll take it.”

 

“No!” Gwen said quickly, picking it up first. “I’ll do it.”

 

With a bright smile she carried the refilled goblet back to the table and placed it beside Arthur.

 

“Thank you, Guinevere,” he said with a smile.

 

“You’re welcome, my lord.”

 

He raised his eyebrows questioningly.  Well?  they said, anxiously.

 

Gwen allowed her smile to linger a moment longer and she patted the pocket in which the note was safely stored.  I’ll be there,  it assured him.

 

Arthur was relieved by this; relieved but not relaxed.

 

 

*

 

 

Gwen bubbled with expectation as she walked towards Arthur’s chambers. She had rushed Morgana into bed faster than usual; partly because she was drunk and was half-asleep already (which was all to the good) and partly because she  just wanted to get away  to see Arthur.

 

As she neared her destination she passed a shiny dish hanging on the wall and caught sight of the way she looked. She stopped and stared. Gwen didn’t like what she saw: she saw a child! A silly little girl still wearing the same dress she made when she was thirteen and seriously overestimated how much she was going to grow. She looked so weary from all the work she had crammed into today; her hair was all scrapped back and bunched back, her dress looked thin and worn... in short, she felt very frumpy.

 

The worst thing about it was that there was very little Gwen could do to improve it now.

 

Yet seeing how old and unflattering her dress looked on her in that moment motivated her. First, she decided that tomorrow she would use the money she had been saving up to buy some material for two new dresses. She had kept putting it off for so long but now something inside her was motivating her to do it.

 

The other thing she realised was that she could do  one  thing there and then to improve the way she looked.

 

Gwen slowly began to pull the girlish hairpins and yellow ribbons that were holding back her hair. One by one she teased them out until every curl that had been snared up in them was free.

 

With a satisfied smile, Gwen turned the final corner towards Arthur’s chambers.  It felt so good to let her hair down...

 

Gwen listened to the sound of her footsteps clap against the tiled floor.

 

She reached the door.

 

She felt a harsh pull within her stomach.

 

She knocked softly on the door four times.

 

She waited for two seconds.

 

“Come in,” called Arthur’s voice within.

 

Gwen took a deep breath and went through the door. Inside the room was dimly lit with evening candles that cast an orange glow over everything that surrounded it. It had been one thing Gwen had always loved about night time; the romantic glow of candle light.

 

Arthur stepped into the dim light. It dabbed a light glow upon his skin.

 

Her breath was caught in her throat; all she could think about was kissing him.

 

She didn’t want to throw herself at him. She didn’t even want to kiss him straight away; first, she wanted him to say something.

 

But he just stared at her with deep longing in his eyes. Like he  wanted  to do or say something but he needed that bit of courage to kick in first.

 

“You came,” he finally whispered.

 

“You... asked me.”

 

Arthur wetted his lips and walked towards her until he was just a few inches from her body. His natural scents mingled with her own. He was dazed by the fresh smell of newly cut peonies. She was enraptured by the polished scent of iron, the iron of a sword. It felt so natural to both. Natural and desirable.

 

“I’ve been thinking all day,” Arthur confessed, his voice shaking. “About last night,” he then clarified, “about... what we did – what you let me do – earlier. Have you thought about it?”

 

“It’s very hard not to,” she said, releasing a deep, long breath, “when you had your knee between my legs...”

 

Arthur closed his eyes briefly, reliving that moment and trying to control the feelings that were raging below the surface of his skin. He could feel her warmth so close to him.

 

“I’ve never let anyone do that to me,” Gwen admitted. He opened his eyes again and looked down at her. She smiled meekly. “I never thought I would let anyone be so intimate with me so easily... but I trusted you...”

 

Arthur stepped closer still. Now there was nothing between them but their clothes and skin. Gwen gasped as the heat of his body also sprung itself upon her. It was so utterly intoxicating.

 

He craned his head and, without a word, kissed her lips softly.

 

The touch of his lips spurred Gwen on. It was like she knew no other reaction. She pushed her whole body against him and teased his mouth with her own. A small groan caught itself in Arthur’s throat. With equal instinct, he pushed his own body against her and they shoved loudly into the chamber door behind.

 

He took this opportunity to lock the door.

 

With new confidence, Arthur slipped his tongue into Gwen’s mouth and likewise she returned the gesture with keenness. She could feel her body becoming weaker under the crushing power of her arousal. Her loins literally crumbed beneath it. She could barely breathe under it.

 

Then she realised how long it had been since she had drawn breath.

 

Gwen broke the kiss and took quick, deep breaths.

 

“Do you want this?” Arthur asked directly.

 

 God, wanted her so much...  but he would only have her if she truly wanted him. If she didn’t want this, then he would  force  himself to step away and let her go. He prayed to God that Gwen wanted him too...

 

“Tell me the truth,” he pushed the point. “If you don’t, I’ll stop—”

 

“No!” Gwen cried hurriedly. Her breath was coming heavily.  He couldn’t back down now . If he could feel the dampness spreading across her thighs, he wouldn’t even think to stop. “Don’t stop—you don’t need to stop. I promise you—don’t stop.”

 

 “Do you want this?”  Arthur asked again, quivering. He held himself firmly against her, “Do you want  me ?”

 

Gwen nodded hurriedly, still breathing heavily.

 

“Yes,” she squeaked. “I do... very much.”

 

Arthur lowered his head to kiss the quivering pulse on Gwen’s neck. She gasped sharply. He pulled her closer to him and smothered her neck with furious kisses. Gwen released a relieved cry of pleasure.

 

She could feel the wetness seeping from between her legs.

 

With a weak hand, she clasped Arthur’s wrist and slowly guided left down to the point where her modesty lay beneath her skirt. She pressed his palm against the rough material, and said, “You’ll see soon just how much I want to....”

 

Arthur softly stroked his palm against her pubis bone and pressed her against the door. His painfully tight manhood brushed against her stomach. Gwen closed her eyes, unable to think of doing anything else other than screaming with delight if just the feeling of him against her.

 

He chuckled under his breath: “You can tell how much I want to as well.”

 

She grinned and kissed him again.

 

With one swift swoop, Arthur picked her up and carried her to the bed. He set her down carefully onto the mattress. Gwen smirked and lay back against the pillows. She made sure to do it with more careful grace than she had last night when she literally threw herself onto his bed. She wanted to look as alluring as possible.

 

Not that she needed to. He was already hard for her.

 

She kicked her shoes off, letting each one fly across the floor.

 

Arthur watched with amusement. He took a moment to admire her understated beauty under the flickering effect of candlelight. Gwen regarded him with coquettish certainty and invitingly parted her legs for him. Half of her skirt fell past her knee, revealing the shapeliness of her left leg.

 

He stared at it; the last time he had seen her naked legs was when she grazed her knees after Elyan pushed her a little too hard into the water. Dagonet had carried her to one-side and he had watched as he checked to make sure she wasn’t bleeding. Arthur remembered staring with curiosity back then too, which Elyan lurked guiltily in the background.

 

It was odd to compare such an innocent childhood memory to  this . Now all Arthur could think about when he looked at Gwen’s legs was what it would be like to have them wrapped around his waist. He wanted to touch them, run his hands across the skin and push them even further apart...

 

Immediately, he began to pull off his shirt; watching him made Gwen think.

 

“Shall I get under the covers?” she asked.

 

She stared at his bare torso, suddenly feeling an overwhelming desire to run her tongue around his nipples. It was strange because she had never thought about  that  before.

 

Arthur lowered his hands to unbutton his flies.

 

He nodded, “If you want.”

 

He certainly wanted to. There was something safe and comforting about the idea of being naked underneath the bedcovers. Somehow it felt less like they were on display to the emptiness of the room and instead closeted with the girl he desired the most.

 

He looked away as Gwen pushed back and slipped herself feet first under the covers. Once there she looked across the room to watch him as she too removed her dress. Then she was completely naked but for her loin cloth and Arthur’s fine blankets.

 

She then sat up in bed, clutched the sheets around her chest and waited for him.

 

Arthur undid the last button of his flies and stared at her.

 

“Would you rather I didn’t look?” Gwen asked

 

She was not even attempting to look away she was so fixated.

 

“You’re going to see it soon anyway,” Arthur said softly.

 

He finally removed the last of his clothing.

 

Gwen’s eyes immediately travelled down from his face.

 

She knew off hand what a man’s ‘intimates’ looked like, but obviously had never been presented with one. Her heart skipped a beat. Her loins curled. Her passage quaked. The sight of it excited her but all she could think of was one thing...

 

 How was  that  going to fit inside—?

 

She forced herself to look him in the eyes.

 

Before she knew it, he was under the covers with her, clutching her body tightly against him. They both gasped at the hot sensations of skin on skin. It felt so unusual, sexy and personal. She relished in the firmness of his body (and the hardness in one place). He was fascinated with her delicateness of hers, particularly her soft and surprisingly substantial breasts. She hid these growing little buds so well beneath her unflattering dresses.

 

He cupped and kisses one tenderly.

 

Gwen’s heart pounded beneath his touch.

 

“They’re so lovely,” he whispered.

 

He gently grazed his teeth against her teat.

 

She felt body blush all over.

 

Gwen worried about Arthur’s size for less than two seconds longer before her body yielded. She allowed him to roll her onto her back and parted her legs for him. He perched himself in between them and kissed her lips again.

 

His hands roamed where he had fantasised about. They went up her legs, stroking the soft skin right up until his hands met with the light cloth protecting her diffidence.

 

He looked daringly at her. “Can I...?”

 

Gwen slowly nodded and shifted herself to allow him to remove her underwear. She was very conscious of how damp she was.

 

Arthur peeled the cloth away.

 

His hand ventured right to her centre. Having obtained permission, he carefully touched the delicate skin that had never been bared to a man before. He traced the tips of his callous fingers blindly across the foreign pastures, not daring to look at what he was doing because it felt... clinical. He was more interested in watching Gwen’s reaction.

 

The moment he touched her, Gwen’s entire body jumped with surprise.

 

He smiled and with renewed confidence, slipped a finger inside her.

 

Gwen bulked up, her whole body meeting his.

 

“Arthur...” she whispered questioningly.

 

“Do you want me to stop?” he asked.

 

She shook her head and lay back down.

 

He carefully felt the netted walls of her inside, pumping his finger in and out in the process.

 

Gwen pressed her head firmly into the pillow, registering her approval to him.

 

Cautiously, he attempted to slip another one in. It was easier than he thought it would be with her desirable tightness wrapped around his fingers. “You’re so...  wet ,” he muttered in amazement. He removed his two fingers after a minute, drenched in her natural lubrication. Unable to fight the curiosity, he put them both in his mouth to taste it.

 

Gwen nearly laughed; it was the most bizarre thing she had ever seen.

 

Yet his curiosity had paid off for both, as Arthur found her natural taste surprisingly... sweet.

 

“Would you think it strange if I...” he began slowly and looked down between her legs. He then looked at her again, “You know.”

 

Gwen’s eyes widened. “You want to...?”

 

Arthur nodded, “Do you mind?”

 

It sounded positively weird and wonderful.

 

She nodded again and watched with deep keenness as he slowly disappeared under the bed clothes towards her core.

 

Then it hit her; the hot, wet and gluttonous feeling of his mouth against her. After barely a few seconds Gwen squeaked with delight. He ran his lips across her lips; suckled her clit, which he realised upon reaching it was the tender stop he and tended to earlier; and slipped his tongue inside her, drinking the honey from the source.

 

She shuddered violently, buckled her hips up against him and cried out as the familiar organism from earlier hit her threefold.

 

She had  never  come like that before...

 

Arthur felt oddly satisfied at her delight. It made him feel even more aroused. In fact, he didn’t think he could withhold himself for much longer.

 

He emerged from below the bedcovers, settled once more between her thighs and pushed her legs further apart. He had heard somewhere – probably from overhearing Cai’s idle boasts – that spreading a woman’s legs as far as possible made it easier to...

 

Gwen got the idea and finished the job herself, parting them as far as was comfortable. Arthur then smothered her with kiss, after kiss, after kiss until his body literally couldn’t  take  it anymore. His level of tolerance reached its peak when Gwen arched her whole body against him.

 

His nerves had held him back long enough.

 

With speedy resolve, Arthur placed the head of his cock at her entrance.

 

Gwen took a long, disjoined breath.

 

She knew what was coming now.

 

All the girls talked about it.

 

How they dreaded it.

 

Arthur clearly knew about it too.

 

But Gwen was calm. Having accepted a long time ago that she would have to ‘take the pain’ for a man one day, the fact that it was Arthur Pendragon made Gwen forget all about the things that used to frighten her about sex. For a long time, she thought her first time would be with one of the local boys. In a hay stack.

 

She leaned up to kiss Arthur’s lips reassuringly.

 

With that, he began to  very  carefully slip inside her.

 

“Ouch!” Gwen yelped.

 

Arthur stopped immediately.

 

Forcing his body to stop now the head of his cock was buried inside her was an almost impossible task. He was barely beginning but the feeling of what little of that rich and sweet-scented heat was wrapped around him was addictive. All he wanted to do now was push all the way into her and pump until he came.

 

But he didn’t want to hurt her either.

 

“I’m sorry,” he gasped guiltily. “Do you want me to—stop?”

 

Saying that was painful for him.

 

To his relief Gwen shook her head manically. “No!” she cried wantonly. “No, please don’t. It doesn’t hurt that much.”

 

He continued going.

 

Gwen closed her eyes and tried to focus on the strange sensation him inside her. It was a good distraction from the burning pain. She wasn’t sure what exactly was hurting although it felt as if something was being... stretched. But she refused to focus on it. She thought instead of Arthur’s concern for her, which had been sweet and unselfish. She thought of how interesting it was that, despite earlier concerns, he was fitting in quite snugly...

 

Then there was one, great bout of pain.

 

Like something had... buckled.

 

Gwen didn’t have to guess what it was.

 

Yet this time she didn’t cry out and instead dug her nails harder into Arthur’s shoulder. He stopped again, leaned down and kissed her again. As Gwen returned the kiss, she slipped one hand down his spine towards the small of his back and gently pressed down.

 

Arthur slipped in until she was filled with him.

 

They both panted wantonly.

 

“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” the prince confessed.

 

Gwen smiled coyly, “I can.”

 

They kissed for what felt like the hundredth time. It felt as if they might have been kissing forever. The truth was it was the sweetest and most comforting thing they could think to do for each other during this intimate and complicatedly simple action they were committed to.

 

Gwen kissed him until the pain subsided again, leaving just a small throbbing between her legs. She could feel Arthur shaking against her. He had been holding back for so long. It was moving because he was doing it for her, but now Gwen wanted Arthur to have what he wanted. And what she wanted.

 

 “Make love to me,”  she mumbled huskily against his lips.

 

Then their lovemaking began. It didn’t take them long to figure out how to do it effectively, even though they didn’t have clue what would be the best way to do it.

 

Feeling her muscles relax around him, Arthur slowly withdrew and re-entered her. He lucidly moved his hips in a gentle, soothing manner, trying not to hurt her too much.

 

Gwen moaned with acute sensation and pain.

 

She closed her eyes and laid his head down against her shoulder. He pumped leisurely into her, using her embrace to keep control. Her pain was surprisingly minimal. She had always been told that the first time would involve blood, soreness and no enjoyment whatsoever. But this was nice. It wasn’t a crashing tide of unbelievable pleasure but it was  nice .

 

Gwen liked it.

 

Arthur  loved  it.

 

Every movement he made against her,  inside her  felt amazing: the smoothness of her figure; the warmth of her skin, the deepness of her body and the small strokes she made through his hair and against the small of his back heightened the enjoyment for him more.

 

He had finally understood why Cai made such a fuss of the thing.

 

The hardest thing, though, was trying not to lose control. He knew that if he left himself, he would thrust much harder, faster and voraciously than he was right now. He wanted to be manic. He wanted to be mad. He wanted to make her his with the forcefulness befitting a man...

 

But he just couldn’t let himself.

 

The sight of Gwen’s equally inexperienced body trying to cope with the unique sensation of literally having another person inside of her sent a calming influence through Arthur’s body. He found himself wondering what she was feeling; how much she was enjoying it, how much it was hurting her... and this started to concern him more than anything  he  wanted to do to her. He became so conscious that his actions directly influenced her so literally that he dared not do anything other than love her tenderly.

 

“Does it hurt?” he panted, trying to keep pace.

 

Gwen’s face seemed concentrated, like she could be in pain. But then she pressed her head further back into the pillow and sighed happily. “No,” she hissed, clearing her throat. “Not anymore.”

 

Not enough that it was noticeably uncomfortable. Her mind felt so relaxed now that the only thing she could feel was Arthur’s shaft.

 

He pressed kisses into the hollow of her neck again. Her assurance that he wasn’t hurting her anymore encouraged him to move just that little bit faster and push just a little bit deeper...

 

Now Gwen seemed to like this a lot better. She gently started to rock her hips to match his movement, which added to his pleasure and hers.

 

She groaned.

 

He quivered.

 

She could feel a warming sensation spread from a point inside, something that he kept touching from thrust to thrust. Her breath became more hurried.

 

It was at this point that Arthur started to come loose. He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stop himself. His thrusts started to become irregular as he tried to find a way to get regain self-control. He tried to hold back as much as possible but it was too damn-hard.

 

All he could focus on was her warm, pliant...

 

Guiltily, Arthur lost his grip and came. The scolding heat of all the passion he had built up for her released itself into her body and died down. He couldn’t move another inch. All he could do was take in the burst of gratification that curled itself in his stomach and groin. Years of playing innocently with Gwen; months of watching her from afar; and weeks of  lusting  for this moment...

 

It felt like some great achievement.

 

Yes, he had lost his virginity and taken hers. In Cai’s eyes, he was now a  real  man. But Arthur didn’t think about that; the achievement for him was bringing his friendship with Gwen to an unconventional and literal climax.

 

Yet Arthur felt guilty about something:

 

He hadn’t got her off.

 

Towards the end of their coitus, Gwen had made a few, small gulps and gasps of contentment but at the end of it all he managed to do was make her intake breath sharply, no doubt from the feeling of his seed spewing inside of her.

 

That had felt unusual.

 

Gwen cleared her throat. It had been nice – but there was something missing. That twinge of pleasure that hit between her legs on and off, it felt as though he  could  have hit it just that little bit harder or more frequently. But she wasn’t disappointed. She had given Arthur her maidenhead. That was what she had  really  wanted.

 

The slightly underwhelming feeling lingered inside Gwen, but she ignored it and pulled his face towards her to kiss him again.

 

She did it so sweetly that Arthur felt his whole-body crush with shame.

 

Gwen could tell something was bothering him when he failed to kiss her back. She wasn’t sure why. He just didn’t feel excited by her anymore. It made her feel anxious.

 

She broke the kiss and looked up at him.

 

“What’s wrong?” she asked slowly.

 

This wasn’t a nice feeling.

 

Arthur bit his lip in a manner that usually only Gwen did.

 

Her heart sunk in her chest.

 

“Did I do something wrong?” Gwen said, almost fearfully. “Did you not like it?”

 

“No, no! It’s not that...”

 

She could feel his body tightened up. It came to head rather awkwardly when Arthur looked her in the eyes, face glowing with sweat and hair on end, and said, “I’m sorry.”

 

“What for, my lord?”

 

“Please,  stop calling me that! ” Arthur huffed. He pulled himself out of her, rolled to one side and rubbed his forehead in frustration. “We just had sex for crying out loud...”

 

Gwen sat up. It felt a little sore now Arthur was ‘gone’. She had an overwhelming desire to feel whether there was any difference. But with Arthur in this odd mood, she didn’t dare.

 

“I’m sorry, Arthur.”

 

She pulled his covers over her breasts weakly.

 

Arthur glanced at her. He realised that she had taken his tantrum too personally and that made him feel even worse.

 

“I finished before you could,” he said softly, trying to make her realise that he wasn’t angry at anything she did. He was angry with himself. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”

 

Gwen could feel the trail of wet warmth creeping down between her legs. She wondered whether it was her blood or his semen.

 

“You did everything right,” Arthur went on. “I’ve wanted to sleep with you for a long time now. I never realised how much until the other night. But I wanted it. I’d thought about it... I planned it so many times in my head, yet I just  couldn’t  keep control.”

 

Gwen shifted closer to him and took his hand.

 

“I hate that I couldn’t get you off,” Arthur mumbled under his breath. “I could do it with my fingers, my mouth. Hell, even my thigh! Why is it that the  one  thing I’m supposed to be able to pleasure you with didn’t... work?”

 

He looked around the dimly lit room.

 

“Guinevere, did I do anything  right ?”

 

Gwen moved herself closer to him and, in a way, tried to restore his ego... or at least patch it up a bit. She was not the biggest fan of bolshie Arthur but she didn’t like crestfallen Arthur either. She wanted him to be cocky and confident again...

 

She cupped his chin and turned his head towards her.

 

“You still did get me off,” Gwen reminded him. “Thanks to you I had two orgasms I otherwise wouldn’t have had.”

 

He smiled but was still clearly disappointed in himself.

 

“And, “she then smiled, “You didn’t hurt me.”

 

“I hurt you a bit...”

 

“Maybe,” Gwen conceded, “but that was unavoidable. I have known girls that have been in pain for days after their first time because the man was too rough or too quick...”

 

She ran her fingers across his knuckles.

 

“But you did none of that,” Gwen assured with such a warm smile it made Arthur’s stomach lunge. “You were so tender and I felt so... relaxed. And after that, you didn’t hurt me at all.”

 

Arthur managed to smile a little.

 

“What did it feel like, Guinevere?” he asked. “I know I was doing something that you liked and I just wondered—”

 

“Oh,” was all she said for a moment. She had to think about her answer here, not quite knowing how to describe it in a way he would understand. “It—it feels as if there is—there is this place inside me. Sometimes when you were—”

 

She couldn’t think of the right word for the rhythm which lay at the heart of love making.

 

“Thrusting,” Arthur suddenly said, feeling the same even as he said that word.

 

Gwen nodded, “Sometimes when you were  thrusting  into me, you touched that point. It felt nice, like a warm glow, and I’m certain that if you had kept at it...”

 

She stopped, feeling a little exposed by her words.

 

“You would have come?” Arthur finished for her.

 

She nodded, “Yes.”

 

He laid his head back against the pillows again, thinking about what she had said. It was bizarre but Arthur was resolved to ‘get it right’ if it was the last thing he ever did. His determination started to work him up again. The way she had described that point inside her body had been strangely arousing...

 

“I’ll make it up to you,” Arthur promised aloud.

 

He pulled her close and kissed her forehead.

 

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Arthur said softly.

 

Gwen just sighed happily and rested her head on his chest.

 

“This really had been great,” he told her.

 

She nodded and smiled, “Yes, it has.”

 

Another silence.

 

“Arthur?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Where did you get the idea of using your mouth like that?”

 

He laughed, “I don’t actually know. It just... came to me.”

 

“Hm,” Gwen hummed. “They say the best discoveries are made by accident.”

 

 

*

 

 

An hour later Gwen finally returned home. It was before midnight so she had not broken her father’s ruling. Even though the grounding had been lifted thanks to Arthur’s aid, she still didn’t want to push her luck with him.

 

She walked calmly into the house, finding Tom eating the soup she had made at lunch time. It seemed a little late for him to be eating and there was no sign of Elyan.

 

“I’m home,” Gwen said, stating the obvious as she pulled off her red cape and hung it on the hook on the door. “Are you alright?”

 

Tom looked up and smiled distractedly, “Everything is fine Gwen. I’ve just finished work.”

 

Gwen looked the window at the darkness she had just come from.

 

“It’s half past eleven, dad,” she said, confused.

 

Tom looked out the window too.

 

“Is that how late it is?” he muttered to himself.

 

Something was clearly bothering him. Given that Gwen was in a  fantastic  mood, his uncharacteristically sombre mood smacked her out of her secret post-coital bliss.

 

Gwen sat opposite Tom at the table.

 

“Dad, where’s Elyan?”

 

Tom sighed and gestured his head towards the direction of the family forge. “Still working,” he told her. “I’m not going to lie to you, Gwen. We had a bit of a... falling out.”

 

Gwen sighed, rubbing her elbows awkwardly. Her father’s quietness was very unsettling and it made the house feel less homely somehow.

 

“What did you fall out about?” she finally asked.

 

“Work, mainly,” Tom told her. It had started with work but moved on to Elyan’s lifestyle itself. “I tried to talk to Elyan about his future, about one day running the forge. He made a basic error and... I scolded him. He didn’t take it very well, we rowed about it. Now, he won’t come in even to eat...”

 

Tom looked down at his bowl.

 

“I have been sitting here for the last few hours waiting for him to come in,” he confessed, and he chuckled. “How tragic is that?”

 

Gwen smiled sadly. It was funny but had she  not  just returned from the palace after making love to Arthur for two hours, she might have felt more anxious about this. Instead she felt fittingly calm and collected.

 

She picked up the other soup bowl and carried it to the shove.

 

“I’ll warm this up and take it to him,” Gwen told her father. “When you’ve finished that, wash up and go to bed. I’ll talk to Elyan.”

 

Tom smiled sadly. “You’re such a good girl to me, Gwen.”

 

He watched her for a moment.

 

“I hope you and Elyan always have each other,” Tom told her. “The problem is—he’s just like me—when I was his age. You on the other hand—”

 

Gwen didn’t let him finish.

 

“Eat your soup, dad.”

 

A few minutes later she finished heating up Elyan’s soup and carried it the short distance around the back of the house to the forge next door. She found the shed open and a small light illuminating from it.

 

Inside she found Elyan, warming himself by the fire. He turned to face Gwen as soon as he heard her coming in. He smiled half-heartedly as she came up beside him and handed him the bowl of soup.

 

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

 

“Dad said you’ve fallen out again,” Gwen said immediately. “Don’t you think it’s time to come home and settle your differences?”

 

Elyan sighed, “It’s not that simple Gwen. Dad and I—we just don’t get on.”

 

She slipped into the chair beside him. She felt a tiny bit sore from earlier, but she covered it well and Elyan didn’t seem to notice at all.

 

“It’s not that you don’t get on,” Gwen told him. “You just have a habit of rubbing each other up the wrong way.”

 

Elyan chuckled, “What others would definite as ‘not getting along’.”

 

She shook her head.

 

“Don’t get me wrong Gwen,” her brother assured her. “God knows I love him. He’s a good-natured, kind man and while any other father would have pawned us off on Nana or the palace after our mother died, he raised us single handed.”

 

He took a spoonful of his soup.

 

“Even you couldn’t make leek soup when you were five,” Elyan joked.

 

“Maybe,” Gwen nodded. “But I could by the time I was six. Nana taught me.”

 

Tom hadn’t been able to cook either as all the cooking had previously been done by Emma. So, the children had literally lived off whatever he could pile together at the end of a long day. The weekends were always a treat though as their grandmother Adele would cook for them, so they were assured warm food.

 

Eventually Adele managed to teach Tom how to make the most basic of hot meals, but even then, Gwen was more advanced in her knowledge of cooking.

 

Elyan returned to his earlier point.

 

“We’re too alike get along,” he said sadly. “I think sometimes he sees me and wishes that I was more like you.”

 

“Able to make leek soup?”

 

“I’m serious Gwen,” Elyan said. “I’m just—so sick of Camelot. I’m sick of this forge, sick of the same old routine...”

 

Gwen looked away awkwardly.

 

“Please say sorry to dad,” she said simply. “He’s been sitting in there for hours waiting for you. He didn’t even know what time it was when I told him.”

 

Elyan looked up, “Saying sorry isn’t going to make this go away Gwen.”

 

“Maybe not,” Gwen said sadly, kind of hoping that it would but knowing deep down he was right. “But it would make dad feel better.”

 

Her brother looked away.

 

“Never go to sleep on an argument,” Gwen told him. “That’s what Nana used to always say.”

 

Elyan muttered something under his breath and nodded, “All right, if it will make him feel better.”

 

The tone of his voice let Gwen know that not all was right with her brother. She wished there was something she could say to make his outlook on Camelot seem brighter, but there was nothing that came to mind, not least because she couldn’t quite understand why Elyan was so unhappy.

 

Evidently, Elyan could tell that his sister was anything but unhappy.

 

“You look different somehow,” he remarked as he picked up his food bowl to carry back to the house. “More... steady.”

 

“Do I?” Gwen said, keeping her back to her brother.

 

“Yeah,” Elyan said, tilting his head. “Did something good happen at work?”

 

Gwen’s heart skipped a beat. The memory of her and Arthur flashed through her head briefly before she bravely turned to face her brother with a genuine smile.

 

“I’ve just had a really good day.”

 

Elyan nodded and patted her on the shoulder.

 

“That makes one of us.”

 

 

*

 

 

Gwen was sent by Morgana to deliver a note to Lady Freda. She was sending an apology for not being able to make the dinner between their families as she had ‘important matters to attend to’. That was, she was washing her hair and wanted to avoid Freda at all costs. She was just too  forward  to be a true lady.

 

“Be careful of her,” Morgana had warned as she handed over the note. “Every girl is praying to that woman.”

 

The young maid knew that all too well. Having had the privilege of working in the kitchens with many of the servant girls of Sir Ector’s household, Gwen had heard first-hand the stories that went on behind closed doors. Many of the girls spoke of how Lady Freda would inappropriately touch women’s collarbones and stroke their hair.

 

Indeed, some people could have dismissed these girls’ statements as exaggerations were it not for some of the more amoral servant girls who boasted at having ‘serving’ both the Lady and her son Cai. Thankfully, it was never at the same time. Such a story would just sicken the court to its core, and even the loosest servants had some ground to their lack of morality.

 

“She makes it all seem motherly and friendly,” Hazel had told her one time. “But it means she’s grooming you for herself, or her son,  or both! ”

 

Gwen did not mind delivering the message as she had wanted to talk to Hazel anyway. Her mother was a midwife with access to potions that were ‘of womanly concern’, which Gwen didn’t feel comfortable going to Gaius or any other male physician for; a tincture of pennyroyal and rue...  ‘ _la herbe du belle fille_.’

 

Visiting Lady Freda’s chambers was like entering a different world. Hazel once told Gwen that Sir Ector had originally wanted  her  for his household when the Uther approved her promotion to being one of Morgana’s maids. The mere thought of that alternative world in which she was indeed in Freda’s service made her shiver. Would her first time have been with that ghastly twat Cai? Would it have been against her will, or at least with her tired, reluctant consent?

 

Would she ever have had her time with Arthur, had it not been her first?

 

Gwen felt a gush of warmth eek from below as she thought of it.

 

The idea of brushing up against Cai in the corridor made her feel violated, let alone the thought of him being inside of her. Yet the moment she thought of Arthur, she remembered what it felt like to have  him  inside her. It had been tight, large, sore and  amazing . He had been slow and gentle with her despite the feeling of excitement that had erupted through his body. Gwen knew because she could feel it pumping beneath his skin as he carefully pumped it into her. He had caressed and kissed her comfortingly each time she made a pained cry, and even apologised at the moment of penetration.

 

She could hear his voice in her head right now.

 

It had hurt a little bit. The worst of the pain had really come when she literally felt her hymen snap. At least it felt like it had snapped although ‘tore’ might be a better word, Gwen thought. It was such a thin, small thing and it had felt more like a burning than the breaking of flesh.

 

But then she had relaxed and it stopped hurting as much...

 

Gwen tried to dab down her blushes as she knocked on Lady Freda’s door and walked slowly in when she heard the older woman’s voice literally ring throughout the chambers,

 

Freda appeared after a brief interval, during which Gwen had caught sight of herself in the mirror. She wondered if she looked any different at all, whether the taking of her virginity had somehow made her look more like a woman.

 

But apart from the fact she had purposely chosen to wear her hair down again, Gwen could see nothing different about herself. Her mind was too focused in replaying the thrills of last night in her head and thinking about the sight tenderness aching between her legs. It wasn’t too noticeable but she had bled slightly.

 

Thankfully she was aware this was natural.

 

“Ah!” Freda said with a suddenly husky voice. “Young Guinevere, what a genuine pleasure!”

 

The woman approached her and immediately reached out to stroke Gwen’s loose darkest brown locks of hair. It made Gwen’s skin prickle, and not at all with the excitement she felt whenever Arthur touched her and  had  touched her. It was more in a manner which told her to find Hazel, get the potion and leave at the earliest opportunity.

 

The lady continued to tease Gwen’s curls for a moment before she stopped still, as if detecting something, and slowly withdrew her hand.

 

“Feeling quite well, my dear?” Freda asked curiously.

 

Gwen looked from side to side but dared not move her head. “Very well thank you, my lady.”

 

“Not hurting at all?”

 

Gwen felt her cheeks flush even more.

 

“No, my lady.”

 

Suddenly, Lady Freda seemed to drop the subject and she smiled pleasantly, “I assume you come from your mistress.”

 

The young maid nodded quickly and handed over the note. Freda opened it, read it and casually threw it onto a near-by table. “That’s just as well,” she muttered softly, and looked over to a group of her own maids. “I myself have better things to be doing myself.”

 

The servants all chuckled knowingly.

 

Gwen checked all the faces of Freda’s serving girls but Hazel was nowhere in sight. She must be elsewhere...

 

She glanced in the direction of the door.

 

“You seem keen to go suddenly, Gwen,” Lady Freda said. “Are you worried you might... be seen?”

 

Her eyes snapped back to face the older noblewoman.

 

“Of course not,” Gwen said quickly, not understanding what she meant. “I was... wondering where Hazel was.”

 

Lady Freda gave a small smile; she knew where Hazel.

 

She also had a good idea why Gwen wanted to see her.

 

She was a little surprised but did not reveal it.

 

“She is busy now,” the lady explained to her. “I will send her ‘round to you lady’s chambers when she is finished.”

 

Gwen swallowed awkwardly, “Thank you, my lady.”

 

Lady Freda nodded, “Of course! Do give my best regards to Lady Morgana.”

 

Gwen nodded her head respectfully and strode out the room to leave. The whole time she was there with Lady Freda, her mind was completely blank. Then as soon as she was back within the safety of the corridor, the thoughts of Arthur came flooding back, and thinking of those feelings again made her smile to herself.

 

It made her heart quicken again.

 

Back in her chambers, Lady Freda immediately turned to walk back into the main living area. She walked towards the door which led to her son’s own personal chambers. The sound of muffled pants and groans could be heard within.

 

She rolled her eyes and banged on the door.

 

The sounds stopped.

 

Cai’s breathless voice called out, “What?”

 

“Pull yourself out,” Lady Freda ordered with disgusting frankness. “Hazel needs to get to work and you need to get up.”

 

There were sounds of reluctant groans.

 

Then thirty seconds later the door opened and Hazel, sheepishly, stepped out.

 

“I apologise, my lady,” she said, still trying to catch her breath and right her dress.

 

Lady Freda tied the front of Hazel’s dress herself as a mother would.

 

“No harm done, my dear,” the older woman assured her. “You could hardly have turned my son down, I suppose.”

 

Once the dress was fixed she gave her the orders.

 

“Head over to Lady Morgana’s chambers,” Lady Freda told her. “I have nothing to say to her; but young Guinevere was looking for you just now. I believe she wishes to talk to you.”

 

Hazel tied back her hair again.  What could sweet little Gwen want with her?

 

Lady Freda smiled and motioned her off.

 

As the servant girl left, Freda went into her son’s chambers.

 

He had thankfully pulled his britches up again and was lying lazily on the couch which stood at the foot of his bed. His eyes were closed lazily and he was clearly going to be awkward with her for interrupting his ‘me’ time.

 

With no subtly whatsoever, Lady Freda slapped her son.

 

“Ow!” Cai cried out. He sat up immediately and saw his mother looming over him with a mixture of amusement and annoyance in her expression. He checked behind her and then chuckled. “I thought Arthur might have been looking for me.”

 

“I have a question for you,” Lady Freda said firmly.

 

“Did you have to interrupt me while Hazel was on top of me?”

 

“It was inappropriate to have been sleeping with her while she was on duty,” Freda scolded him.

 

“Oh, trust me,” Cai said crudely. “We were not sleeping.”

 

She raised her hand to slap him again.

 

Cai shielded himself and changed his tone to sound more accommodating: “Ask away, mother.”

 

Lady Freda scowled at him:

 

“Did you rob Morgana’s maid of her chastity recently?”

 

Cai sat up, not quite corpus mentis enough to know what she was talking about. It took him a second to put the occupation of ‘Morgana’s maid’ to the girl in question. “You mean Gwen?” he asked, and rubbed his eyes and thought for another moment, “Are you asking me if I’ve fucked her?”

 

“I don’t like that word, Cai,” Freda said firmly.

 

“I like that word,” the son told his mother frankly. “It’s direct and to the point and describes the act perfectly.”

 

Freda gave him another painful slap across the face for that.

 

It hurt. But he recoiled with laughter, and made is reply, “No, I did not ‘rob’ her of her chastity, mother. I  wish  I had. I mean  Christ  look at her! One of the reasons I’ve gone back to Hazel is because she looks a bit like her. Not nearly as pretty and not as young but she’s good enough. I  hate  knowing that there’s a maid around still intact.”

 

“Well, I am certain that young Gwen is no longer ‘intact’.”

 

Cai suddenly seemed to wake up from his drossiness. “How on earth can you tell?”

 

“There are signs,” Freda said with a shrug. “The way she holds herself seems to suggest she’s feeling a little sore in her modesty. The way she’s worn her hair down despite being at work and keeps looking in the mirror suggests she is suffering from a sudden bout physical pride...”

 

The elder woman then smiled wickedly.

 

“Her breasts seem fuller too,” she finished randomly. “I have found that is the sign of a woman who has lain with a man very recently.”

 

“Or a woman in your case,” Cai mumbled.

 

That warranted yet  another  slap.

 

Cai’s cheek was very sore now.

 

“Why did you think I had done the deed?” the knight asked.

 

“She seemed a little unnerved while she was here. I thought she might be reluctant to come face to face with you in my presence.”

 

Cai sat back where he was sitting and concealed a knowing smirk behind his hand. He knew his mother was an expert on deflowering women, in more ways than one. She could always tell which of her maids he had ‘tried’ for himself. He trusted her instinct about Gwen.

 

As far as Cai was concerned, it could only mean one thing.  Arthur had finally done it.  He knew the prince had been overly possessive of Guinevere. His entirely  violent  actions towards Cai over his confession to having an attraction for her himself, had been befitting a man staking his claim. Gwen had caught his eye.

 

Arthur had wanted her and he had had her. Maybe now he had had his way with her, he would be less possessive of her...>?

 

“Well,” Cai said slowly. “I wasn’t me. I wish it was, but it wasn’t.”

 

Lady Freda nodded, “Very well. It was probably one of the local boys, then.”

 

Cai knew that Arthur would murder him if he told anyone it was him. Well, Cai assumed that it was Arthur who had slept with Gwen.

 

“Lucky anonymous local lad,” Cai sniggered.

 

He watched as his mother turned to walk out of the chambers. “Leave it a week,” Freda called to him. “She’s going to be sore for a few days so leave it at least a week.”

 

Even though Cai and his mother had always had an unsettlingly frank relationship, which was necessary when they occasionally shared lovers, the fact she knew his mind so well made him feel a little uncomfortable still.

 

But he wasn’t going to deny that was exactly what he was thinking about.

 

Once Freda was gone, he got up and closed the door so he could get dressed properly.

 

“Lucky anonymous Prince Arthur,” he joked to himself.

 

 

*

 

 

“I never thought I’d see the day when  you  would be asking for my help, Gwen.”

 

Hazel, having finally caught up with her young friend, had taken Gwen safely to one side, far away from Morgana’s earshot so the lady couldn’t hear what they were discussing.

 

“I was starting to wonder whether you even had the guile to sleep with a man...”

 

Gwen said nothing.

 

She was surprisingly dignified about the whole thing. She thought it would be embarrassing asking Hazel to give her a contraceptive tincture but she felt very calm about it. She wasn’t ashamed of having slept with Arthur last night, and this was a responsible action she was taking. Pregnancy was a risk Gwen wasn’t willing to take.

 

Hazel pulled the potion out of her pocket.

 

Gwen stared at it, “You carry it around with you?”

 

“You never know when you’re going to need it,” the older maid smirked. “I was going to use this one myself but I can get another one from mother later.”

 

She gave the bottle to Gwen.

 

“Don’t take the whole thing,” Hazel warned her. “You only need about a table spoonful.”

 

Gwen looked at the light-coloured liquid.

 

Hazel chuckled, “There’s about five goes in that bottle, I’d say.”

 

Gwen did not laugh.

 

“No need to be prudish,” Hazel said defensively.

 

“If I was prudish I wouldn’t have come to you at all,” the younger maid said snorted, and pocketed the bottle carefully. She wasn’t going to take it in front of her.

 

Hazel cocked her head curiously. “So? Who was it?”

 

Gwen scowled. “With all due respect, it’s none of your business.”

 

“You  really are  prudish!” Hazel teased her, rolling her eyes. “Why only an hour ago I was on top of Sir Cai and his mother came bursting in to pack me off to help you. You don’t see me blushing.”

 

 Really, because I’d blush if I was caught on top of Sir Cai!  Gwen thought to herself. She didn’t say it out loud although she couldn’t resist scoffing, “I just want to keep it to myself. It’s my business.”

 

Hazel shrugged, “Fine. I was only curious because, well, you’ve got such reputation for being frigid; the man deserves a round of applause!”

 

Unable to resist, Gwen looked at her peer coyly and said breathlessly, “He certainly does.”

 

 

*

 

 

Arthur completely forgot everything that Dagonet had told him.

 

Instead of listening to his mind and common sense, he let instinct take over. With swiftness they both began to disrobe their rain-damp clothes, kissing each other randomly and hungrily. They peeled the material from the chilled skin until they were bare before each other.

 

Gwen stroked her cold hands over Arthur’s warm chest.

 

His breath quivered.

 

For a second, he wondered if he should allow this one moment of weakness. But he just couldn’t find the motivation or strength to stop her and tell her the truth. The merely sight of Gwen keenly running her hand over his body while she sat as bare chest as he was too arousing to bring common sense into the mix.

 

She leaned forward to run a line of kisses down his neck.

 

He tilted his head back slightly. “Oh  God ...”

 

Gwen chuckled.

 

She gently nibbled his skin.

 

Arthur felt himself growing aroused and he was at its mercy. He knew where it was leading; and the last whispers of Dagonet’s warnings lingered in his mind. He had to be honest.

 

“Guinevere...” he gasped anxiously.

 

“Hm,” she hummed delightedly against his skin. “Do you like that?”

 

His whole body was alight.

 

“God, yes,” Arthur assured her. “But Guinevere...”

 

She stopped briefly to look up at him.

 

“Remember how you said you could make it up to me,” Gwen asked him, her sadness from before seemed to have completely melted away and was replaced with a vivacious keenness. “After you and I slept together?”

 

Arthur swallowed, “Of course.”

 

She grinned, “Then make it up to me.”

 

They completely let themselves go. They smothered each other with kisses; stroked each other with slow and achingly wonderful intimacy; and took each other with more excitement and confidence than last time. He slipped inside her easily, none of the restrictions from last time. And this time Gwen gasped with nothing but relief to have him there.

 

Dagonet’s warnings may have been far from Arthur’s mind at this moment but he remembered his advice.

 

 

*

 

 

“I was just thinking,” Arthur said thoughtfully after a long silence between Gwen and himself. “What do you think we should call ourselves?”

 

Gwen looked over at him, her head pillowed against his forearm.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Well,” he went on, turning his body slightly towards her. “The first time we did it, it could have been a one-off; the second – and third – times could have been ‘just something that happened’... but now, this is becoming a ‘thing’.”

 

She looked into his eyes. “I suppose it is.”

 

“Exactly,” he agreed. “So, what does that make this? I mean, is it ‘an arrangement’?”

 

Gwen chuckled, “We’re a bit too disorganised to be an arrangement.”

 

Arthur burst out laughing, brought his arm to loop about her shoulders and pulled her closer. “Maybe we should try and plan these meetings more often then?”

 

He then paused as he realised the forwardness with which he was basically propositioning her. In all the heat and excitement, he had forgotten that Gwen might not want this to become what he was effectively suggesting; a permanent understanding between the two of them.

 

Gwen quickly kissed his hand and snuggled closer to him.

 

“Are you suggesting we have a  schedule ?”

 

He laughed again.

 

“Nothing quite so depressing,” Arthur replied.

 

He then thought for a moment.

 

“Although,” he began again, following this path while Gwen was still willing to walk it. “If we did make this a... permanent thing, we should probably keep track of what both of us are doing every day and when we are free.”

 

Gwen stared up at the ceiling and lay still.

 

“Then there is my own calendar to consider...” she whispered under her breath. To her shame, it had only just occurred to her that she was  currently  at a point where she was most vulnerable. “I’ll have to get a potion,” Gwen muttered to herself after a train of thought. “And keep a detailed record of my cycle. Cook has always said women should do that as a rule, I’ve just—never had need to before...”

 

Arthur wasn’t naive. He knew exactly what she was talking about and he concurred with her sentiments. They didn’t want any unwelcome guests to crop up because of this.

 

“I can obtain a prophylactic,” he said calmly.

 

It would not be difficult to get one. Cai had a collection of them, so they had to be easy to find. If not, then he would just have to ask him. The gossip would spread through the knights like wildfire, and the thought of it made Arthur cringe, but it had to be done.

 

“Guinevere,” he said, changing the subject.

 

“Yes, my lord?”

 

“Are we...” he paused for a moment, trying to judge whether the suggestion was stupid or not. He decided to say it nonetheless, “Are we still friends, do you think?”

 

Gwen bit her bottom lip. “Friends don’t usually do  this , Arthur.”

 

“There must be some,” he said, thinking that they can’t be the only people in the world who had stumbled across an ‘arrangement’ like this. “I still think of you as a friend.”

 

“Do you?”

 

“Of course,” Arthur replied, and he leaned up again to look at her. “Don’t you think we’re friends?”

 

Gwen placed her hand on his bare-chest and sighed. “We don’t exactly see much of each other like when we were children, do we?”

 

Arthur couldn’t help but make a bad joke at this point:

 

“Are you kidding?” he chuckled. “We’ve seen more of each other in the last week than we ever did as kids. I’ve seen  all  of you.”

 

Gwen swatted him playfully, “You have a filthy mind, Arthur Pendragon. Very filthy indeed.”

 

“You have no idea.” He grinned and rolled her back onto her back and gently began to suckle the top of her left breast, making his way towards the nipple. Before he reached it, he stopped, and looked up, “So why don’t we just consider ourselves ‘special friends’.”

 

Gwen raised her head to look down at him.

 

“Good friends,” she said, in agreement.

 

“Yes,” Arthur nodded. “We are just good friends who happen to have an understanding.”

 

“Yes,” Gwen whispered, feeling his mouth slowly return to her breast. “That’s what we can call ourselves; friends with an understanding.”

 

 

*

 

 

Gwen arrived at Arthur’s chambers just as the bell tolled ten times to indicate the time. The moment she arrived she was wrapped up into Arthur’s arms and her lips were met with an overpowering kiss. Her body felt as if it would fold in on itself as her loins literally burned, as the old saying goes. She had been thinking about this moment all day.

 

She lopped her arms around his neck and let her lips linger just a little longer before she pulled away and smiled. “I’m sorry it took me so long,” Gwen whispered. “Usually these days Morgana can’t wait to get rid of me. Tonight, it was the other way around.”

 

“Thank God she let you go,” Arthur said, hoisting her up into his arms. “A few minutes more and I’d have been climbing the walls.”

 

He carried her towards the bed.

 

“You didn’t think I’d stood you up, did you?” Gwen asked.

 

“I am  always  concerned about that,” he confessed.

 

Arthur placed her down on the edge of the bed. His hands immediately went to undoing the ties of her bodice. Likewise, Gwen began to remove his belt.

 

“I’ve never missed a meeting, have I?” she said.

 

“I know,” Arthur said slowly. “You are always... reliable.”

 

It was a strange compliment but Gwen still liked it. She liked being reliable and was oddly proud at never having missed or cancelled an agreed meeting between the two of them. She liked to be consistent in everything she did, even this strange arrangement she had with Arthur. They had been meeting once or twice a month (and every odd day) for the last four years. To have never gone back or cancelled a meeting was an achievement.

 

Gwen threw his belt to one side and slipped her arms out of her untied bodice.

 

She then began to undo her actual dress, trying to do it a sexily as possible – which even after all this time could be quite hard – while keeping her eyes on Arthur the whole time. He watched keenly, trying to fight the urge to wet his lips and show just how keen he was to see her naked. It never lost its effect on him.

 

“It’ll happen one day, though,” Arthur lamented, eyes pinned to her hands as they came forward to pull the material from her shoulders. She did it slowly, teasingly. “One day you’ll meet someone who can give you an ordinary life, and then we’ll have to stop.”

 

Gwen unveiled her breasts under her purple material. He stared down at her, forgetting everything else he might have thought of saying.

 

“Who says I want an ordinary life?” she asked coyly.

 

“Everyone wants to get married and have children one day, don’t they?”

 

“Do you?”

 

“It’s not a question on whether I want it,” Arthur corrected her. “I  have  to get married and have children, so my father says.”

 

She looked up at him with her large, dark eyes, pulling him in and over her. Slowly, she lay back and he crawled on top of her.

 

As they came face to face in this vertical position they had been in many times, she grinned.

 

“You’re right,” Gwen said with a nod. “That day will come – although it might just as well come for you. One day you’ll have to marry some rich Lady or a Princess whose father has a large army, and then we’ll have to stop too.”

 

Arthur knew she was right – but he didn’t want to think about  that . Instead he found himself grinning as he kissed her lips gently. “Who says I’d stop?”

 

Gwen’s eyes had closed when he began to kiss her, but they shot open again when he said that. She broke it and raised an eyebrow, “You would stop. Your conscious is too pure not to.”

 

He stared down at her. He couldn’t ever imagine wanting to stop  this . Arthur hoped the day would come where he would fall madly in love but – it had never happened. He had never experienced that love-at-first-sight feeling that was  supposed  to ideally happen when you met your soul-mate. He didn’t think he ever would; and at this moment he could not foresee a life past this moment.

 

And  this : comfortable and safe no-strings-attached sex.

 

“Be that as it may,” Arthur said indifferently. “It’s not happening any time soon.”

 

He said no more, although he felt he should. He stroked her cheek affectionately and shifted over to take off his boots.

 

Gwen sat up again too; she slipped her shoes off and pulled the rest of her dress off. Across the room she could see her reflection in a piece of shining armour. With that sight, she removed the pins from her hair so it all hung loose about her shoulders. She placed them neatly beside the bed.

 

She crawled up behind Arthur as both his boots hit the floor with loud thuds. Using her tongue, Gwen nibbled his ear lobes gently. She giggled as he leant his head  right  back to look her in the eyes and they shared an upside-down kiss, haphazardly.

 

Arthur jumped up and swiftly removed his shirt. He then began to undo his trousers.

 

“Wait,” Gwen said strictly.

 

He stopped dead and watched as she reached forward to undo the flies herself. Once that was done, she reached inside to take hold of him, bring him out and—

 

“Do you want me to?” Gwen asked, looking at him.

 

It was tempting. Arthur liked to be sucked off as much as the next man... but he had been waiting longer than he had anticipated for her to turn up, and right now he was more interested in just having a good, long shag.

 

He cupped her chin.

 

“No, it’s fine,” Arthur said, and pulled the rest of his clothes off.

 

Within seconds they were both lying horizontally across the bed, embracing and kissing just before he slipped himself inside her and began pumping. Every movement was slow and long, to draw out every sensation and to make up for the time which his annoying sister had wasted by keeping Guinevere away from him.

 

She smiled up at him, fond of this pace.

 

He smiled back at her, “I’m glad you made it in the end.”

 

Gwen reached up to pat his face again. His movement rocked her up and down against the bed.

 

“I told you,” she said breezily. “I would never stand you up...”

 

 

*

 

 

The next morning Arthur woke up with a deep sense of satisfaction and regret.

 

The moment he opened his eyes and realised that dawn had broken, he knew that Guinevere would be gone. She always felt just as the sun as coming up; sometimes he slept through it, most of the time he would feel her pulling away from her... sometimes having to free herself from their coital grip, which they had remained locked in despite having been asleep. But he would pretend to sleep on, and instead just listen to her dressing again.

 

On occasion he would faintly open his eyes to watch her. He would tell himself it was better to pretend he hasn’t felt her go than show himself to be awake. He knew if he sat up and watched her, he would want her to stay longer.

 

Arthur sighed. His deep regret came from the knowledge that he had made love to her for the last time. He would never hold her naked against him again, or run his hands through her hair, or feel the rich sensations of their cavorting...

 

He felt his stomach tighten.

 

He would never come inside her again. It was a rather odd thought but he still had it on the trail of thoughts he was having even before he opened his eyes to properly wake up. He stared at the canopy above his head. That was something he was really going to miss. It wasn’t just the pleasure aspect – wonderful though it was – but the level of intimacy involved. He remembered feeling it after their first time together, and every time after that; never had he been or felt closer to another person.

 

Arthur wondered if that was why he kept going back to Gwen, to relive it repeatedly.

 

Now knowing that it would never happen again, that their days of casual pleasure were over and that instead of him it would be  some other man  reaping the joys that she had to offer (and he had helped her develop) – and it made him feel sick with jealousy.

 

He took a loud, deep breath of frustration and rubbed his faced with his palms. The thought of last night and the longing for it not to have been the  last  night was starting to send twitches to his loins again...

 

A small touch on the centre of his chest is all it takes to snap him out of his self-pity.

 

Arthur looked up to see Guinevere still there, leaning over him as she lay beside him. Her fingers stroked the quickening of his thudding heart thoughtfully.

 

“You’re still here?” he said, a little confused.

 

She nodded.

 

“I thought,” Gwen began slowly, trying to find the right words. “This might sound silly—but I thought it would be wrong to leave this time without saying goodbye.”

 

The sickness in Arthur’s stomach and chest bubbled up again. He tried to make the best of her words by sounding quite general.

 

He smiled, “It’s not like one of us is moving away. We’ll still see each other all the time. We’ll still be—” and then he stopped, a little unconvinced by his closing statement even as he said it, “We’ll still be friends.”

 

Gwen bit her lips, clearly not in agreement. Yet she didn’t say it.

 

“I know we’ll still see each other,” she said calmly, bringing her hand up to his jaw line now. “But not like this.”

 

Arthur swallowed.

 

“No,” he said croakily, “Not like  this .”

 

He reached up to twist a curl of her hair around his finger. It was strange as just minutes ago Arthur had lamented that he would never do that again, yet fate had now given him another chance. It made the flushing heat of desire spread through his body all over again.

 

He propped himself up so they lay facing each other, side by side.

 

“Kiss me,” he asked.

 

Gwen smiled sadly, “The night is over, Arthur.”

 

“You’re still in my bed,” he pointed out, managing to smile to. Yet her teasing denial made him want it even more. “Kiss me.”

 

“So, you’re saying I either kiss you or get out of your bed?”

 

Arthur threw his leg over her thigh. He seemed to have cheered up considerably now and was smirking cockily, “Is one little kiss too much to ask?”

 

Gwen glanced down at the gap between them and wiggled her eyebrows. “It seems to me that you’re after more than one kiss.”

 

He didn’t say anything. Instead he pulled her closer by placing his hand at the bottom of her spine, also bringing her closer to his early morning erection.

 

Gwen gasped, her breath tickling Arthur’s face as her heavy eyes stared wantonly into his.

 

“We said last night would be the last time,” Gwen stated, making no attempt to pull away.

 

Without another thought she leaned in to kiss his lips. Arthur responded slowly but eagerly, even more spurred on by the feeling of her free hand running leisurely up and down his arm.

 

Gently, he rolled her onto her back. Their kisses were becoming more passionate, and preparatory for sex. The dampness between Gwen’s legs was stretching out onto the tops of her thighs. As it did so, she kissed him with desperation before pulling her mouth away in a fit of hurried breaths.

 

He pushed her thighs apart.

 

She placed her hand on his shoulder to hold her still above her.

 

“This will have to be the last time, won’t it?” Gwen said, regret in her voice as well as genuinely asking the question. She had forgotten that the decision really lay with her. It was because of her possible changing circumstances that Arthur was now looking to prolong the moment as much as possible. Yet she asked him again, “Won’t it?”

 

Arthur stared down at her.

 

“Merlin will be turning up for work soon,” he said bluntly. “This will probably be the last time, yes.”

 

Gwen nodded, and reached up to kiss him again. He took this as a signal to begin their last act of love making and took position between her legs. She broke the kiss and whispered, “Back...” but her words were interrupted by his kissing again. The head of his cock brushed the core of her entrance.

 

She broke the kiss again, this time using both her strength and words to give her orders. “Lie on your back,” Gwen told him, pushing him off her and onto the other side of the bed.

 

Arthur was a little surprised but he allowed himself to roll and flop over. Then he tried not to laugh as Gwen scrambled gracelessly on top of him and tried not to grunt  too  loudly when she took hold of his manhood and pulled it to her to slip onto it.

 

She did it in a much more elegant, slow motion that Arthur appreciated. It allowed him to take in the warm, wet and netted walls of her path. When she tightened them around him, he closed his eyes and thanked God that he hadn’t woken up alone this morning after all...

 

Feeling a little too close to the edge of the bed, however, Arthur clutched Gwen’s legs to him and pulled them both over with his hips to the centre of the mattress. The tiny movement made Gwen breath sharply, although it was hard to tell whether it was from surprise at his sudden movement or whether his cock had already touched the point of her cervix buried deep inside her.

 

Either way Arthur suddenly found himself was caught between two pillows but he could live with that provided they began soon, and quickly. Then anticipation was starting to get to him.

 

But then Gwen grabbed another pillow and slid it gently under his head.

 

She looked down at him with a genuinely affectionate smile. “I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable,” she said.

 

A warm feeling rose through Arthur, and this time it wasn’t just fuelled by desire.

 

Gwen placed her hands on each of shoulders and looked down at him, wanting to get this right. She had only ever been on top from time to time as she usually allowed the prince to choose what position he took her from, which usually led to him taking the dominating place. On the occasions where Gwen had topped him Arthur had usually still taken the lead by thrusting so hard upward that she could barely think coherently or he held her so tightly that every movement was his and his alone. And then he usually shifted her underneath him again once to finish once he had got her off.

 

“Ready?” she asked.

 

Arthur burst into a fit of chuckles, causing tiny sparks of sensation to flow through Gwen’s body. She swatted him gently on the chest again, beaming.

 

“Stop teasing me,” Gwen scolded him.

 

With that Arthur sat up slightly to kiss her gently on the lips. Then he slowly pulled them away, still grinning, “I’m always ready for you.”

 

Gwen pushed him back down to his head rested on the pillow she had set for him.

 

“Very droll,” she joked.

 

Then she slowly began to move her body up and down.

 

 

*

 

 

Merlin came into work early. There was no particular reason why other than he had woken up early and decided to wake his master up early too. Of course, early meant the ‘correct’ time for Arthur really and usual time meant ‘late’.

 

He came quietly thought the side-door to Arthur’s chambers and put the breakfast tray down. Initially he didn’t notice anything going on at all. He noticed that the canopy bed curtains were closed, but that was about it.

 

It was only as Merlin walked over towards the windows to open those curtains he heard the noises indicating that Arthur was indeed far from asleep. There was a succession of frequent, small grunts of eagerness... which made the servant giggle, thinking that his master was pleasuring himself. It wouldn’t have been the first time Merlin had caught Arthur doing  that .

 

That would explain why the curtains were closed. Merlin decided he would call out and startle him – but then he heard a distinctly feminine gasp, and then another, and another...

 

It made Merlin swallow his planned holler immediately.

 

 Arthur was with a woman?!  the servant thought awkwardly, already feeling the sweat beads gather on the back of his neck.  If he catches me, he’ll kill me!

 

Slowly the servant turned to creep out the room, close the door and pretend he had never heard anything at all. He valued his life too much, although he knew he would spend the next hour before he felt it was safe to return wondering who the woman was...

 

But he didn’t have to wonder.

 

Just as he was half way out the door, Merlin heard Arthur call it out in utter relish.

 

“Oh,  Guinevere !”

 

The young man at the door was left completely pinned to the spot and horrified. Well, not  horrified  – just dumbfounded. It made him wonder for a second if he had heard correctly. He found himself listening closer to the woman’s mews of pleasure, trying to tell whether it sounds like Gwen.

 

Her squeaks of were coming more frequently than ever before. Merlin could even see the curtains rattle a little as the orgy behind them continued.

 

“ Guinevere ,” Arthur moaned again.

 

This time Gwen replied, so that there could be no doubt in Merlin’s mind that it was her in bed with the prince.

 

“ Arthur ,” she said, sounding lusciously amused.

 

The saga kept going a little longer and Merlin felt caught between a rock and a hard place; should he confront them or leave quickly and never speak of it again? He might have chosen the latter had it not been for the fact that in that moment he remembered Lancelot; his proposal to Gwen, and her promise to ‘think’ about it...

 

It was with that in mind that Merlin charged towards the bed with an expression of shock already spread across to it.

 

He ripped back the curtains.

 

_He hadn’t been as prepared as he thought._

 

 

*


End file.
